Collections Within My Collection: Resins (Part 2)

A very, very special section of my resin collection is the Kathleen Moody section. And there's an interesting story behind that collection, too.

Kathleen is my favorite Breyer sculptor. When her resins were first being introduced, oh, how I wanted a Palomar Elite!

She is also a long time friend. We have much in common - we love horses, we have big families, and we share the same religion. With those in common, we became good friends way back in the Haynet days of the hobby.  

I was just returning to work after sixteen years of being home with my children. Money was tight, tight, tight. The mama of eight children herself, Kathleen understands how tight a budget for a big family can be and that often there simply is no room in it for extras.

Like resin models.

One day, an unexpected box from Kathleen arrived at my house. Curious, I opened it. And my jaw dropped at what was inside.

Inside were some of her resins, and they were all gifts  for me. I didn't ask for them. I'd never told that her my dream was to some day own her Palomar Elite. That I thought her Magnificence was, well, magnificent. 

Well, guess what was in that box:

Palomar Elite II. It arrived unpainted and so I sent it out to Janis Whitcomb for painting.

My dream resin. It was now in my collection. (And still is.)

Kathleen also gave me Magnificence, one of her signature, most loved sculpts! If I remember right, Kathleen told me this was an extra blank she happened to have. 

Janis Whitcomb worked her magic on this piece, too. I love that bright chestnut color so much.

 I believe this Arabian came from her personal collection. It's a customized On Broadway. If I remember right, Kathleen is the one who customized it.

Quite a box to receive in the mail, right?  I will always be grateful to Kathleen for her generosity.

But she wasn't done. Earlier I mentioned Haynet, one of the old Yahoo groups back in the early days of the internet. 

I started a very small Yahoo group for friends that, like Kathleen, shared my passion for horses, kids, and religion. There were eight or ten of us and we had a lot of fun chatting.

It's a long story but in 2001, Kathleen told us she wanted to make a special sculpt for our group. We had fun discussing ideas and offering suggestions for the horse that she was going to sculpt  - not only our own special run, but our own sculpt!

That model became her Rockwell resin. And once again, Kathleen's generous side surfaced and she sent a Rockwell blank to all the members of our group.

Once again, Janis Whitcomb painted my piece for me in a gorgeous blue roan.

So many fond memories of getting the chance to collaborate with Kathleen and other friends on creating a model and having it come to fruition.

There's one more Moody resin in my collection, but it is much more recent than the other pieces. Kathleen's style is distinctive and I can recognize her work even when she is not listed as the artist.

I was looking at a catalogue for Trail of the Painted Ponies and this Fjord caught my eye. I knew immediately who had sculpted him. Looking him up showed that I was correct.

I've named him Afjordable and keep him on one of the model shelves in my horse room.

That all the resins I have (although you never know when you open a box in the back of the closet...) It's not a big section of my collection, but it's loved.

I hope you enjoyed looking at it with me  - I sure did!

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!