Carrasco Studio

A Horse of a Different Color

Since I'm ramping up for a new project ( a set of three murals,) I haven't done new work since I did the rendering for this current job.  So I thought I'd throw in a blast from the past. (You can tell by my hair color)  One of my more unusual jobs.

This was done for The Ruins, an private dining club extravaganza where nothing was ordinary. I was fortunate to be hired to do a lot of painting for The Ruins, and this was one of my projects.

My client showed me a full sized white paper mache horse that he had bought from Fredrick and Nelson department store when it went out of business, and asked me to paint it gold and then cover it with tiny flowers.  The horse had traveled with Yves St. Laurent's runway fashion show, and Seattle was the end of the line, so Mr. French Thoroughbred ended up the store basement, waiting for someone to lead him into the light.

A horse knowledgeable friend told me that the horse looked like it had too much spring grass....perhaps refering to it's round belly.  I preferred to think it was pregnant and one night would give birth to a whole litter of floral colts.  Of course it is a boy horse, but I didn't let that interfere with my story.

Horses keep turning up in my oeuvre, and in fact, were my initial drive to create art.  I lived in a small rural community and all my friends had horses and/or cattle, and I desperately wanted a horse.  However, my father, in his infinite wisdom, would not buy me one.  So I drew them, did paintings of them, rode my friend's horses and would whinny and paw the air when I came to the breakfast table.  Dad ignored my subtle hints, and I outgrew my fetish.  Well, sorta.

Later in life I painted and repainted the Spokane Loof Carrousel horses on four different occasions.  Fifty-eight of the lovely creatures.  I posted this before (see my carrousel archive), but here it is again.  GiddyUp.

 

 

Painting Carrousel Horses

This is an old post on my blog from before I joined Facebook.  My friend Jeff Raum, a most excellent painter, has been commissioned to do a painting of an armored carousel horse, and I thought I would put this out there for him (and anyone else who might find it interesting).  This carousel work got me started on decorative painting and murals. (Long ago, when the earth was cooling)

In 1983 I was askesd by a friend if I would be interested in painting the antique wooden carousel animals in Spokane's Riverfront Park.  It wasn't restoration in the sense of repairing the original finish....the badly neglected horses had been totally stripped and repainted in 1976 for the Spokane World's Fair.  My painting was done because  the horses are loved to death and ridden nine months out of the year, and belt buckles, shoes and purses take their toll on the finish and need repainting every two or so years.

The animals, which include a fearsome tiger, a swan, a dragon and a giraffe, total 58 in all, and were sculpted by Charles Loof in the early 1900's and presented to his daughter as a wedding present when she married the owner of Spokane's Natatorium Park.  My grandmother and granddad, who rode them as did succeeding generations of my family down to my own son, Carlos, told me that people used to take the trolley to the park to dance, and end their evenings with a ride on the merry-go-round.  It sounds terribly romantic, and there is a definite aura about the animals, somewhat like the old statues of the saints.  So many hopes and dreams were carried on the back of these lovely sculptures.  Here's a watercolor I painted of the horses, and the warrior horse stands out because he is so dramatic.  

 

I would work on the animals for two months in the dead of  winter, and  I can tell you that winter in Spokane is an event.  It snows. And snows. And snows.  The park staff ...mostly guys....would come in and prep the horses for me....filling and sanding during the day,, and I would paint them.  I used Pratt and Lambert Alkyd paint because it was hard and brilliant, and it's a wonder  I can still put 2 and 2 together, because the fumes were awful.  No ventilation to speak of , and if we opened the door of the glass house of the carrousel, I would freeze to death.  However, I ended up painting all 58 at four different times.  Even after I moved to S.Carolina, they flew me up to paint.

I would paint until about 9 pm, and dark comes early in Spokane latitudes.  The snow would build up in glittering piles outside, and I would be alone in my world of brilliant animals.  They gleamed in their enameled splendour.....their pretty Arab heads with dished profiles and flared nostrils, their arched necks  and  tumbled manes.  Their tails were/are real, and their eyes and jewels are glass.  There is a place in Kansas where you can get carousel horse tails and glass jewels and eyes, in case you wondered.

The field mice would come out at night to eat the leftover popcorn, and were totally fearless.....doing acrobat leaps over my boots and behaving disgracefully. Sex. drugs(popcorn heightens mouse libido, evidently) and rock and roll. 

 Finally it would be time to go home, and I'd clean my brushes, spread my rags outside, and close the heavy glass door with a click I can still remember with my fingers. The park could be a threatening place at night and I was an easy target, working inside the brightly lit glass house, but I was never bothered.  Only once, while I waited for a bus, did a guy make kung foo moves all around me for about 15 minutes.  That was a little weird, but I think he was fighting imaginary enemies, not me.

A woman named Martha was my boss, and she kept the machines of the merry-go -round in good condition. I liked Martha and respected her sensitivity and good sense.
I wrote and illustrated a story about carousel animals who came alive on winter nights and went out to play in the snow with Martha.  She was a wizard at night and brought them alive with her magic wand. I imagine her as she is in my watercolors...wearing her billed cap and Carhart overalls, polishing the brass and feeding the mice.