Collections Within My Collection: Resins (Part 1)

Second Post of the Day

Resins! I have a few but I really don't actively collect them. But, like other things I don't collect, I do have some in my collection.

Like this Black Horse Ranch Special Run Percheron in leopard Appaloosa.

I bought him from Liz Cory at a Great Lakes Congress show. I wanted to have an example of a BHR resin in my collection.

Donna Chaney's china Circus Horse is a grail but I doubt I will ever have one. But! She does produce them in resin and I've kept my eyes open for one of those for years.

Luck was with me. A few years ago I went to a swap meet and discovered this full sized resin on a sales table. Painted in 2002 by Lisa Rivera, it is an older piece but still quite lovely and affordable. Home with me it came. Knowing that I would never own the piece in china, I was soooooooo excited to have the china-sized resin.

And then, disaster struck. I was reaching around it in the china cabinet to retrieve another piece. I must've bumped it and it tipped over and fell out the open cabinet door. Despite the carpeting on the floor, I heard it break into pieces as it tumbled onto the ground.

I couldn't look. I stood frozen, my arm still inside the cabinet and my eyes squeezed shut tight. Craig came rushing into the living room asking me if I were hurt.

Still not looking, I asked him what he saw on the floor. "It's bad," he said quietly, and I felt my heart shatter, just as the horse had. Craig helped me find all the pieces (one had actually bounced back into the china hutch and was on a shelf - it took forever to find that piece!) and I set the pieces together on my desk.

Fortunately I was able to send him off to Jennifer Danza for repair and he looks as good as new now. It is one of my favorite circus horses in my collection.

Donna also makes this piece in curio scale and I ordered one a few years ago.

Unfortunately it arrived broken (despite Donna's stellar packing job.) I had it repaired but it is a bit unstable and tipped over on the shelf and broke again. It lies on its side in my china cabinet waiting to be sent out and fixed.

Here is an unusual resin most people have never seen.

A VERY heavy United Design Classic Critters Friesian in harness.

It does well at shows where I am usually directed to put it in the china division. (Just as North Lights are.) It has many wins and NAN cards, but it is just so heavy and fragile that I no longer bring it out.

Another piece from the Sandicast line that is one of my absolute favorites in my entire collection.

Popcorn, a Sandicast Shetland Pony. Years ago he could win his class at a live show, but he's not really competitive now unless it is a collectibility class.

It is hard for family members to find a horse I don't have in my collection, let alone have never seen before. Gimme Grandma Sarah succeeded when she found this piece for me from Bear Country/Westland.

She was out west on a photography trip and visited a gift shop in one of parks where she was filming.

She brought it home for me as a gift. (And was very happy that I did not already have it!)

I've saved the box

and would like to do more research some day on this line of horses. I know nothing about them.

Good friends can be a source of new models, too. 

Liz Cory gave me a piece I'd never seen before at a past Happy Trails show.

Monte Cristo, a resin Arabian with neck band. Very reminiscent of the Family Arabian Stallion! Thanks, Liz!

When resins were just entering the hobby and Carol Williams had sculpted her iconic Ideal Stock Horse, she also released two foals. I bought two resin blanks, one of Okie Rio, the other of Parrs Dream Doll. Both were painted by Janis Whitcomb for me.

Cee Hunt on the Okie Rio resin is a portrait of my Quarter Horse Cee.

I was thrilled with Janis's work.

I asked her to paint the Parrs Dream Doll as a buckskin.

Both foals have done well in shows and have NAN cards, but I don't bring them out any more. Too much risk of breakage.

North Lights were hugely popular in the 1980s and 1990s. I had quite a few, but have sold all but my three favorites.

Fancy Freckles (named after a horse I knew at Girl Scout Camp) on the British Spotted Pony mold. See the two hearts? I've always loved them, but since Abby's death, they have even more meaning to me because she, too, had hearts in her coat. This piece Top Tenned at one of the very first NANs.

D'Artagnan on the Lippizaner mold. Lippizaners are one of my favorite breeds so he has not been sold.

And Sunflower, a paint on the highly delicate Scratching Foal mold.

She's curio scale and those legs and ears are very easily broken. So far Sunflower is in mint condition and is kept in my china cabinet for safety. She's also Top Tenned at NAN, but is retired from showing now.

So, that's the first part of my resin collection. Tomorrow I will show you some more that came from another friend who, like Liz, also gifted me with some pretty special models.

Stay 'tooned!