Mud Ponies

For over a year I have produced a herd of 'Mud Ponies'. They are a big part of my 'wild and primitive pottery'. When I am introduced to a new clay deposit, I crumble some in my hand, douse it with water from my drinking bottle and kneed it a little. Most potters now test plasticity and wet-strength by bending a short coil into a doughnut. I make a pony instead. In the image above on the right is my first one from my first wild clay dig in Benson, AZ.

Surprises happen: we collected clay from the salt pan of the Willcox Playa. The crean colored clay seemed quite pure and plastic, easy to shape. Our workshop teacher Andy Ward explained that the clay needed to be levigated thoroughly to eliminate some of the salt. It would be a lengthy process because this clay tended to stay suspended in water for ever.

I made a little white pony right on site, and over night, while drying, it grew a pelt like an Islandic Pony in winter. Salt crystals that burnt off during firing

In my own European background, horse imagery and sculpture go of course back to the Upper Paleolithic Periode, ca 17000 years ago. But for the decoration of my stubby clay equines I at first borrowed symbols from the painted war ponies of the Natives of the Plains of North America. As far as I know those tribes made little pottery or sculptures.

To make the mud ponies even more my own, I eventually switched from those war ponies to my own Peace Ponies

Some were quite big like the one inspired by 'my' pinto pony Gypsy or a replica of a sculpture that I gave to Japanese friends in the eighties when I had some access to my cousin's salt glaze kiln

Later I gave my more realistic ponies some motion and herd relationships. But still, they stayed on stubby legs as the material dictated. Donkeys, or Burros, became part of it because they add a whole spectrum of interesting expressions and are very popular at my art fairs

With my latest filly I am moving a little bit away from my usual stubby stylizations. The reason: a friend asked me for a pony to memorize a very special encounter with the wild horses of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. We had come together to camp and collect clay and minerals, but some of us were just too fascinated with the little herds of wildlings all around us, especially because many foals were just born.

Cremello horses were more common than in other herds, and those fillies seemed even more leggy and fragile than other foals. So for this special request I abandoned my sturdy-pony-style a little. She is still somewhat supported while drying, but I think it's going to work