Carousel Horse
Carousel Horse Fine Art Soft Sculpture
Converging Lines that is Horse
(Black Satin with Red Roses)
Red and Black Soft Fabric Sculpture with
Beads and Swarovski Crystals
Artist: Elizabeth A. Fletcher
Respond to the artist: carousel_horse@goodideasgonebad.net
I got the idea of doing a horse sculpture using fabric about 11 years ago when I was cruising Christmas decorations in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. There was this really cool scene with plywood cartoon reindeer. I could not get them out of my head.
Several years later the carousel thing came to me while I was living on a remote beach off the coast of Belize, cracking coconuts for supper. Capturing drinking water and functioning without electricity sort of overshadowed sculpting, so I didn’t do anything with the idea. But, Belize did not work out-the lure of solitude is not good for the psyche if taken to its illogical end.
After that, the pursuit of happiness-funding ate up a few more years, and time for art never seemed to materialize. That is, not until I burned out for the third time. Then, it was create or starve because I wasn’t mentally capable of dealing with people. Ironically, I was in the process of building a house, and was once again living without running water or electricity. My nearest neighbors (yeah, I was doing the solitary thing again) let me fetch water from their well, and I foraged the woods, wishing coconuts grew in the Pacific Northwest.
Six intense months later, I was 35 pounds lighter and flat broke but I had created Converging Lines that is Horse: Black Satin with Red Roses. I was an artist on her way and . . . and . . . someone offered me lots of money to take a “real” job. You know, the kind that had burned me out three times before, but would get me that electricity and running water. I asked for too much money, hoping I’d be turned down, but I hadn’t asked for enough and here I am, once again on my way to burnout. So, the chances of another piece like this are pretty slim - this one-of-a-kind piece will probably stay one-of-a kind for quite some time.
My professional photographer from Seattle, Jonathan Schmidt (http:// www.schmidtproductions.com), said of the piece that it was “superb craftsmanship.”
My agent tells me I need to explain how the piece was made. The sculpture is fabric with faux roses and other found items, such as Swarovski crystals, glass and Japanese iridescent beads, couture braid, lace, buttons, ribbon, and ribbon roses. Some painting was used to produce special effects.
As the photograph of the piece hung in the gallery shows, the sculpture, which measures 4 feet tall, 5 feet wide, and 6 inches deep, is going to need a large wall space. As for color, the photographs may or may not show you the real color; it depends on your computer monitor. The red and the greens are as close to primary colors as I could get. The horse is black satin, as is the braiding used for the mane and tail. The ends of the mane and tail braiding and the shading on the horse are beaded using six different kinds and colors of glass beads, ranging from triangular black to iridescent and peacock blue seed beads. The horse’s hooves are black and red bugle beads. The eye is a black vintage glass button with gold edging.
I started the sculpture by cutting a wooden form for the body of the horse, which I padded and covered with black satin. I hand-stitched black ribbon to the satin around the entire edge. Note that everything in the sculpture is stitched down; I was not willing to trust to only glue!
The mane and tail were constructed on separate forms, and applied to the main unit after the saddle was completed. Once all parts were stitched in place, they were secured using an acid- and lignin-free glue, applied with a hypodermic needle.
An interesting thing happened after I started working on the padded form; I started diverging from the original drawings! The work, planned to be a life-like reproduction of a photograph taken of a horse romping in a field near my house, took on the proverbial “life of its own,” becoming a series of curved lines instead of a horse! I wrestled with those lines to keep the horse as true to form as it is. However, and oddly, the part of the photograph that remains true is the part questioned the most-the tail. The horse playing in the field had whisked its rather long tail such that the base of the tail was down and the rest of the tail had come up and over to the other side of its rump - as the sculpture captures. Those pesky lines exaggerated the mane and tail and tilted the saddle, but that peculiar tail flip is photographically true. Even in art, truth appears stranger than fiction!
Somewhere along those converging lines the sculpture became not just horse, but carousel horse. Now the world needed another metaphorically-inspired carousel horse like it needed another over-worked cliché, but carousel horse is what my psyche coughed up regardless of my overt plans. I spent hours thinking about the engineering of the piece as I stitched, but sometimes my thoughts strayed to philosophy. Is life, on a personal basis, a carousel? My black satin horse was beautiful in its simplicity, but stitching miles of thread was boring (stitching uses about this much of my brain), so my answer was “No”, but I kept exploring what appears to be a well-accepted metaphor.
The music, glitz, and glitter of the merry-go-round at rare childhood outings to the amusement park returned, golden moments in an otherwise dark childhood, riding my wild horse with the wind in my hair where no one would dismiss my existence by simply ignoring me. It was just me and my carousel horse, always faithful, although on occasion I was tempted mightily to try another. So horse became carousel horse, but not just any carousel horse! No! I crossed Walter Farley’s black stallion with the red and gold of my childhood friend in the park. Horse took on a life of its own and the pleasure of creation snatched me up to the point of obsession.
I had so much fun dressing up that horse! I thought, “What if I gussied it up a bit, you know, give the artist a mental break?” That’s when the little horse-crazy girl hiding inside me started dressing up her toy horse and searching mom’s button box for the pretty black and gold ones with real diamonds. Apparently childhood pleasures don’t die; they just get buried!
The back of the horse is finished with a piece of synthetic felt hand-stitched to the ribboned edge. The horse is secured to a ½” piece of very strong medium-density fiberboard, which was professionally covered with a countertop laminate. The photos do not show the beauty of this laminate; it looks like a lovely weathered wall of an old Tuscan villa.
The frame was hand-constructed of birch for lightness by a local cabinet master, and lovingly stained a deep ebony. The frame is 6 inches deep, flaring out from the wall in a gentle but striking curve. I did not use any natural fibers (natural fibers must breathe), so the frame can remain sealed. I opted to use museum-quality Plexiglas because of the weight, however, this means the unit should be placed high enough that the uncaring cannot touch the Plexiglas. Scratches can be sanded and heated to clarity, but one should avoid getting to that point. Special care should be taken (i.e., you should wear soft gloves) when hanging, to prevent finger prints. I designed the piece to be viewed from slightly below center. It is meant to be examined closely, and placed not so high that details cannot be viewed.
The piece is quite heavy, requiring two people to lift, but will not take special talent to mount. It fastens to the wall using a “French Cleat”, a particularly-strong fastener intended to be fastened to at least two wall studs. Locate 2 wall studs, ensure the cleat is level, and drive screws through the cleat into the studs. Put on clean gloves and lift the framed horse onto the top of the cleat (two people to lift). I have built a shipping crate which should survive transport anywhere on earth. You will be responsible for shipment, although I will arrange for shipment with the best shipper available in my area, who may require additional crating at your expense.
I’ve heard that life coaches can often tell when their clients finally hit on what they should be doing with themselves because they start to cry, and now I understand that perfectly. Life may not be a carousel, but life needs, indeed, requires, a carousel every now and then.
Price: $17,500
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