| The Stories behind the Painted Ponies - 10th Series Figurines |
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Cathy Smith is a historian and scholar of the American West. She is also an authentic costumer who has worked on such films as Dancing with Wolves and All the Pretty Horses. Her original Pony was adorned with a Crow woman’s Horse Trappings Outfit, circa 1870s. The keyhole-shaped ornament on the forehead was a classic Crow design, the beaded rosette surrounded with horsehair tassels and wrapped in dyed cotton string. Made to carry a short buffalo lance or captured cavalry sword, the case was fashioned out of buffalo rawhide painted with natural earth pigments. Outfits similar to this are still paraded today at the Crow Fair in Crow Agency. Designer, historian and scholar of the American West, with expertise in Plains Indian Art and Culture, Cathy Smith has written extensively, non-fiction as well as screen plays, consulted on a majority of the Western genre films of the last twelve years, created and designed authentic costumes for film, western artists and documentaries, and lectured at museums and historical re-enactments nationwide. |
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In her artistic creations, this Arkansas artist of Cherokee descent (her Indian name is Silver Fox) strives to capture the Native American’s respect for the sacredness and beauty of Mother Earth, the colorful legends handed down from generation to generation, and the love and close bond that was shared with the horse. “(Sacred Reflections) is my Spirit Horse and Peace Pony. She carries an Eagle on her shield, a Buffalo on her Pipe and bag, a Coyote on her quiver and a Bear Paw on the smaller drum. These are the Guardians of the four major directions, and they are also great teachers.” As a child in Jersey City, New Jersey, Joani Jiannine "drew
horses, horses and more horses." When she was 18 she left
home and went to work on the racetrack. Not long after that she
married a jockey. Many years later, when she moved to Arkansas
and lived next door to an old Seneca Medicine woman "who
took me in tow and taught me much of the Native American ways,"
Joani started back into drawing and painting and crafting...
what else? Horses. |
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Navajo Black Beauty - Resin measures 6" high -
As well as for their famous rugs, Navaho weavers are known for their beautiful, pictorial, basket weavings. Many illustrate themes and tell stories that preserve Navajo history. Barbara Duzan, an Arizona artist who has distinguished herself internationally with her one-of-a-kind, beaded animals, wanted to pay special tribute to this unique tribal tradition by beading a Pony that carried "Man Placing the Stars," a Navajo creation myth, on one side of her Pony, and "Sun's Journey through the Sky" on the other. Each design is rendered in the Navaho basket weaver's style. As an artist, Barbara Duzan pursues two art forms - she creates bronze wildlife sculptures, and one-of-a-kind beaded animals (one of which took first prize in a competition held by a Japanese bead company that won her a trip to Japan). She lives at the northern edge of Scottsdale, Arizona, surrounded by the unspoiled beauty of the Sonoran Desert, and is an associate member of: American Women Artists, American Academy of Women Artists, and Women Artists of the West. |
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China is a land of myths and mysteries shrouded in the mists of history. Throughout the course of Chinese history, one animal has exerted a tremendous influence over its development - the horse. Drawing on Imperial artifacts and records dating back to the Qing Dynasty (when the golden dragon symbolized the Emperor), Jeffrey Chan, a former art director in the movie industry in Hong Kong who now works in giftware design, created a glorious "warrior pony" that has the richly detailed feel and look of an archaeological art treasure. After graduating from an arts college in Taipei, Taiwan, Jeffrey
Chan worked as an art director in Hong Kong, then transitioned
to interior decorating for restaurants before entering the giftware
design industry. He loves traveling and photography and collects
professional camera lenses. |
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A cowboy’s best friends are his horse and saddle, a rope, a hat and a comfortable pair of boots. But boy howdy, when it comes to Painted Ponies you can forget the plain, clunky, brown and black working cowboy boot. Banishing the traditional “high heels of the range” from her imagination, Idaho wildlife artist Maria Ryan created a colorful tribute to the cowboy boot mystique when she bedecked and bedazzled her Pony with an outrageous collection of western fashion footwear and let him kick up his heels. Maria Ryan is an accomplished artist and designer who has been winning awards and pleasing collectors around the world for the past thirty years for her innovative and colorful paintings of wildlife. She lives in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho but travels throughout North America studying her subjects and gathering reference material for her paintings. She is an active conservationist supporting numerous organizations with fundraising, teaching and donations of artwork. |
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"From stardust we have come, and to stardust we shall return,” writes Janee Hughes, an artist and writer from the Pacific Northwest as gifted with a pen as with a brush. “Between times, many have gazed in wonder at the night sky and thought they’ve seen figures in the arrangement of stars and galaxies. In centuries past, fertile imaginations have even gone so far as to conjure gods and heroes and tell their stories in terms of myths. Many involve the horse, our respected companion on earth, our friend in the heavens….” Janee Hughes is a former art teacher and award-winning painter
who also writes and illustrates children's books and stories.
She spent four years painting hand-carved wooden horses for Salem,
Oregon's Riverfront Carousel. She has owned horses for many years
and understands how they act and move, and how they show their
feelings - which is why more of Janee Hughes' designs have been
crafted into figurines than any other artist. |
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Growing up on a Colorado horse ranch across the valley from her Cherokee grandfather, this artist was immersed at an early age in both Indian art and culture and the riding life. Painting horses and Indian symbols on leather helped pay for her college tuition. It also inspired her to create a Pony whose power lies in the graphically creative arrangement of assorted spiritual symbols. “I wanted to include the Spirits that guide and protect us, and every one I’ve painted has ‘good medicine.’” A resident of Ocala, Florida, Barbara Janowitz is as well-known for her dramatic patriotic paintings - for which she has received a number of commissions - as her Western art paintings. She has painted "commercially" and "just for fun" all her life. |
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Horses are familiar to all of us, but many of the world’s most beautiful animals live in remote precincts on the planet and are far less familiar. The award-winning painter and book illustrator, Janee Hughes, created this spectacular tribute to some of the creatures that are at home in the vast distances of the arctic. On one side you will find the animals that spend most of their lives in the forests and mountains – the Arctic wolf, the caribou – and on the other are animals that live mostly in the sea or on sea ice – the walrus, polar bear, humpback whale. Above them all are the breathtaking, shifting, shimmering, northern lights. Janee Hughes is a former art teacher and award-winning painter
who also writes and illustrates children's books and stories.
She spent four years painting hand-carved wooden horses for Salem,
Oregon's Riverfront Carousel. She has owned horses for many years
and understands how they act and move, and how they show their
feelings - which is why more of Janee Hughes' designs have been
crafted into figurines than any other artist. |
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