China collector and model horse hobbyist Cindy Neuhaus founded The Lakeshore Collection, Ltd. in 2002. Her goal was to provide affordable fine bisque porcelain horses for collectors.
Using well known sculptors of the time, to date there are five molds in the Lakeshore Collection:
Marshall (Anne Harris), Miz Charisma and Status Symbol (Ed Gonzales), Touch of the Sky (Laurie Jo Jensen), and Houdini (D'arry Jone Frank.) All are traditional sized pieces.
I have three Lakeshores in my collection. My favorite Lakeshore mold is Anne Harris' Marshall who was first released in a run of 1,000 in 2003, shortly after the company started up.
I named him Uppsala as a nod to daughter-in-love Emily's Swedish heritage and that she lived in Uppsala for a year while in college.
My second piece was Houdini in bay pinto who was released in 2004.
After that, I began concentrating on collecting Hagen Renakers and circus ponies for my collection, so I did not purchase any more Lakeshores until BreyerFest 2012 when I specifically sought out the Lakeshore room in the Clarion so I could buy a piece of Raku.
Cindy Neuhaus and me at the Clarion in 2012.
I really wanted a Marshall in Raku and I looked at several of them before I selected this one. He is beautiful and I am glad to have gotten a piece of Lakeshore Raku as Cindy discontinued producing them shortly after that.
I never asked her why so I don't know the reason she discontinued them. But, if I remember correctly, Raku is difficult and time consuming to produce.
A clue to Lakeshore's discontinuation of their Raku line may be in an online discussion that happened in 2020. There was some discussion that the Raku coloring changes over time, becoming a duller, muddy color. (Any Raku coloring on any porcelain or china piece, not just the Lakeshore Raku horses.)
Apparently there is some truth in that Raku coloring does change over time. Here is a link to an article about Raku colors and how they are unstable and do change.
Speculation in that same discussion was that the Raku color could be brought back to life by using a soft cloth to polish it. I doubted that - there is a clear glaze over the Raku layer that I would think would prevent that. But, I gave it a try and polished my Raku Marshall with a soft cloth. The results I got were mixed.
After writing this post and revisiting the color change discussion, I am curious as to how my Raku Marshall looks now. If I can, I will pull him out, take a look, and share pictures tomorrow.
Curious? I sure am.
Stay 'tooned!
I have no Lakeshores in my collection although I think some of them are quite lovely. I also like the Raku style but never sought one out from any mfg. It's interesting that the glaze changes over time.
ReplyDeleteI think Cindy would have liked to keep selling Raku but the artist who created them stopped making them. I think he retired and she lost him as a source for both Raku and the other things he did for her. I have had and heard that others, too have had poor luck shipping them. Since their firing conditions are so unusual they seem to be more brittle. They don't just break in shipping, they shatter! :(
ReplyDelete