Who's sorry now?

O.K. So I can *finally* talk about it without twitching or mumbling under my breath! I went and picked the horse up. . .and it was a mess. Worse than I imagined. I took the following photos before I cleaned all the dirt and fly poo off. Apparently a couple of weeks spent living on the street is pretty hard even for a fiberglass colt. He was dirty, to say the least . . .but, oh dear. . .the damage. *sigh* :^(

The first and second pics show just a few of the MANY hairline cracks he was covered with. These thin cracks are all over the place in the other pics as well but not really obvious until you click on the photos to enlarge them. The really depressing part about these cracks is that they're on the *opposite* side from where the impact occurred. The top surface of the fiberglass figure is made of a thin layer of resin material. A good hard bump in one spot can shatter a much larger area.

The third photo is of the crack that runs up between the front legs. There are several fractures that go down the inside of the leg on the left about 6 or 7 inches.

The next two pics show the break that almost completely circled the left foreleg of the colt. Again, this is the opposite side from where the impact occurred but, because the colts feet were bolted to a small rolling wooden platform, the shock of the fall came very close to shearing this leg off entirely. There is only about 2 inches of material on the inside portion holding the entire leg on.

So far, you've seen the not so good and the really bad. . . but now prepare yourselves for the truly ugly.

The photos really do speak for themselves. On the largest crack, one edge has been literally shoved under the the other edge! If you enlarge the first shoulder photo here, you can see the crack extends a good way down the leg toward the knee.

The front photo of the chest (when enlarged) shows the extensive hairline cracks across the area, reaching almost to the other side. Needless to say, I was pretty "broken up" about all this. . .har har. (pun intended) There was SO much work to be done. . . I began to wish someone had just stolen it. . . or maybe it could go flying out of the back of the pickup while I was doing 65 on the highway? Seriously, I wanted it to disappear.

Naturally I didn't really get going on him until the last minute. . . partially because my heart just wasn't in it any longer, but mostly because I had absolutely no idea where to start or even how to go about fixing him. My Dad had some ideas, but some of them sounded sort of scary and like they might cause more damage than they would repair. I heard mention of prying something up, and banging it with a hammer. (?) By the time the new deadline was approaching (Oct 4th for the live auction) I was out of excuses and agreed to let Dad help me however he could.

No good deed goes unpunished.

Yeah, I had a premonition. The plan was that the S.M.I.L.E.S. organization would bolt each colt to a plywood platform with wheels so it could be easily moved around by the various people hosting them for he summer. Something in me thought there might be a problem with a 45 pound, 54" tall, top heavy fiberglass horse being attached to a small wheeled board. It was just a fleeting thought. A week or two later, a blustery afternoon storm blew through the area and downtown Lake Geneva had wind gusts in excess of 70 mph. Do I need to keep typing? My colt didn't make it inside before the storm hit and he got smashed onto the concrete sidewalk. UGH! Well, I couldn't go to get him for many weeks since I was in the middle of getting ready for Breyerfest in July and my Father had some health issues right after that that took priority as well. By the time I went to see the damage to the colt I was *almost* prepared to take it all in stride. Seeing my cute little guy all cracked up was pretty hard though. At first it didn't look too bad. Of course he landed on his right shoulder and side and my initial view of him was from the left. As I looked closer, I could see that what I originally thought were long scratches in his finish, were actually long cracks crazed along his surface! Egads! His front torso is very cracked up. Some of his flowers were broken off, the vines were cracked, but the worst was the approximately 3" x 3" area on the point of his right shoulder that was shattered completely with jagged edges overlapping each other. It must have been the main point of impact. He had to have run into a garbage can or one of the street lamp poles before being blown over. Looooooooong cracks radiate out from that ugly wound, across his sides, between and around his front legs. One of his legs is essentially detached and being held on by the underlying support. I am doing my very best to restore him but I'm at a loss as to how to go about some of these things. Hopefully I will have him in decent shape by October. The organization holding the event is antsy to get him back. He will have to have special treatment from now on though. I don't think he should be displayed outdoors and he definitely can't endure having anything heavy on his back. I think I can make him look good again, but this whole thing has taken up so much more of my time, money, and energy than I ever expected it to. The more time I spend on the project, away from my income producing work, the closer I come to being a non-profit organization myself! Har har! I won't bore everyone with the extended repair process. . . I'll post a few photos but, honestly, even *I'm* getting sick of looking at him!

Oh and by the way . . . The person or people who actually called and complained to the S.M.I.L.E.S. folks about my colt? The ones who were displeased that he was on display with his injuries and not being repaired right away in preparation for their viewing pleasure? The person who actually called my colt a "disgrace?" Thank you for making an already unhappy situation even more unpleasant. I'm sorry that 2 minutes of your shopping day was ruined by my misfortune.

Intermission for an official website blurb

Here are the websites where you can see all of the colts in the Horsing Around Town, Lake Geneva public art project.
My colt's official name is: "If you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you."

http://horsingaroundtown.net/servlet/SmilesWebAuctionServlet.servlet The complete site with multiple photos of each colt and short profiles on each theme. Apparently you can bid on them too.

http://www.walworthcogetaway.com/ click on the People's Choice Award logo to vote for your favorite. I will even forgive you if you don't vote for mine.

http://midwesthorse.blogspot.com/2008/08/horsing-around-town.html This blogger has a neat slideshow with photos of many of the colts in the display areas where they've been all summer.

O.K., now hand it over. . .

Before we left the house, I gave the unicorn several coats of Frog Juice (a protective, UV resistant coating used by commecial sign makers.) When he was dry, we loaded him into the truck and headed off for Lake Geneva, only an hour late. Grrrr. It didn't really matter since we got there with plenty of time to unload, get his picture taken, and look at all of the other colts. I forgot to sign the little bugger so I had to take along some paint and a brush and extra Frog Juice, so I could do it there. It felt pretty good to have him finished and no longer my responsibility but all I could really think about was getting something to eat and crawling into bed to nurse my aches and pains. Yeah, I know I'm wearing the SAME shirt in these pics as I am in the profile photo to the left here. I promise that it is just a coincidence! I actually own several other shirts! I'm not like that gal Jerry dated in the old Seinfeld episode with the "Superman" dress! (Season 7 Episode 13 The Seven for the hardcore Seinfeld fans out there) So, the day was over, and it was time to leave him behind. Just look at him watching the other colts. I guess the herding instinct is strong even in fiberglass horses. With his new name tag around his neck I left him with his blue buddy there and headed home. I would not have expected to see him again any time soon. . . except, I had a premonition. . .

It's all in the details. . .

Most of these are clickable for ENORMOUS photos!

Approaching the finish line

I think I stopped painting somewhere around 9 a.m. on Friday morning. I didn't look at the clock, I just dragged myself up the stairs and fell onto the bed in the guestroom. I had to get at least a little sleep because I still needed to make the one hour drive (and another hour back home again) to Lake Geneva to deliver the little guy. My Mom woke me up around noon with a concerned tone in her voice, "were you able to finish it?" I actually had finished it, with the exception of the protective coating that would help protect the paint work from hundreds of inquisitive hands as well as day after day of UV exposure. I popped out of bed with renewed energy (yeah. . .RIGHT!) and ran (staggered) down stairs again to see if it looked o.k or if it looked like it had been painted in a partial stupor. I seriously don't remember much about the night after I put away the airbrush and started hand painting. There's just a long and seemingly endless stream of close-up images in my head as I moved from spot to spot, mixing paint and dabbing away with my small brushes as fast as I could. I do recall that somewhere around 7:30 I opened up the wildly colored little pans of Pearl-Ex powder I'd purchased a few days before. I was looking for something to make my white (as he was supposed to originally be) foal a little less. . . well. . . white. Having never used these highly concentrated pigment powders before, I, naturally, wanted to experiment carefully and find just the right technique to use for the optimum visual effect. . . which is why I grabbed a brush and frantically started applying every color I had to the mane and tail and flowers, and horn, and . . . Haha! Given the fact that I was making things up as I went, it didn't turn out too badly.

Ready. . .set. . .PAINT!!!

My Mom came downstairs at about 11 pm to bear witness to the beginning of the airbrushing portion of the project. She snapped a few photos and shared the observation that she couldn't imagine how I was going to have it finished by the time we needed to leave the next day. Honestly, I couldn't imagine it either! So, this first photo pretty much sums up the mood of the evening. See how stooped over I am? My back had absolutely had it. Too much bending over, crouching on the floor, and standing on concrete. To this very day my left index finger, my right thumb, and my left big toe, haven't fully recovered from the experience!
I spent a LOT of time picking hair off this critter. . . my parents have 2 German Shepherds (better known as German Shedders) and their loose hair was everywhere! There wasn't really anyplace else I could do this though since my Folks have all the necessary equipment and a LOT more space than I do at my house.
Can you see the tiny little metal cup on the underside of the airbrush I'm holding in the first photo? Now, imagine how many times I had to fill that little cup to put a fine layer of pearlescent white paint over the whole foal? Haahahaahaha! It boggles the mind! But it was worth it. He's all pearly and iridescent.
So, the solution to the botched lacquer on his butt ended up being to make him a dapple grey. The dappling helped camouflage the unsightly area and gave me the peace of mind I DESPERATELY needed at that point. The hard-core horse people will say that no foal that young would ever be a dapple grey but unless they provide me with proof that unicorn foals *don't* come in dapple gray, I will exercise my artistic license and do what I please! So, BACK OFF! I'm tired and cranky! ;^P









. . .apparently I'd painted some vines and leaves by this point. . . I'd have to estimate the time of these last four photos at about 3 am.