Remembering the 1979 Model Horse Congress

Summer has always been a good time for a model horse event.  As collectors look forward to live shows and BreyerFest, I thought it might be fun to look back at an early large model horse show, the eighth annual Model Horse Congress in 1979.  It was organized by the young woman who came to be acknowledged as the godmother of the model horse hobby, Marney J. Walerius. 

Fortunately for us, the August 5, 1979 edition of the Chicago Tribune published a long article on the Congress, mostly an interview with Marney.  The reporter, Mary Daniels, did a decent job (for a non-collector) of explaining what was going on. (You'll see an interesting misspelling of "Walerius" in one of the captions.)

I'll show you the whole article first; then you can scroll down to read it in smaller sections and see the photos of Marney's model horses.  They show a draft horse by Francis Eustis, a Beswick Quarter Horse, an original finish Hagen-Renaker "Maverick" Quarter Horse," and a test run dapple gray Breyer Family Arabian Stallion.  

The article mentions Peter Stone, when he worked for Breyer, and other hobby resources of the time, including the Model Horse Showers' Journal published by Linda Walter and Breyer's Just About Horses.

Here's the full article.  Scroll down to read it in sections!

Here's a photo of Marney with her niece, Susan Randall,
admiring a Francis W. Eustis Percheron.

(W-a-l-e-r-i-u-s....)

Did you ever attend a Model Horse Congress?  If so I'd love to hear your memories!  

___

Author Nancy Kelly has a great blog post on Marney Walerius, Ellen Hitchins, Simone Smiljanic, and the Model Horse Congress:  

https://www.ketain.com/EarlyModelHorsePioneers.html?fbclid=IwAR29hXEXbuBKxSgT6xJCJ8i6RJV1UC5XyP3XvvdG5I-uJ4e1KUMcd91mMW8

Nancy has written several books relating to the model horse hobby. Her latest is here:

https://www.fairportpress.com/?fbclid=IwAR3dx2IpwsAWnTCn1cLn3fOjUA7lhabydoI9OSMmHpr2n_TqXSwfgXgKrog

Marney passed away in 1992, at age 43. Here's a tribute to her, from another model horse history blog:  http://modelhorsehistory.com/images/THHN/thhn22_pg14.pdf

The Breyer History Diva's blog looks back at the Breyer test run dapple grays, including Marney's In-A-Tiff:

https://breyerhistorydiva.blogspot.com/2010/02/brief-history-of-dapple-grays-part-1.html?fbclid=IwAR32AiMHp9iLjAUxDNTXV0gx8bSLzYQ7pw1qQ0EmZMnpR7JrQaDlgx9P_3o

https://breyerhistorydiva.blogspot.com/2010/02/brief-history-of-dapple-grays-part-2.html?fbclid=IwAR0QX_REYe9D1NdSoA4go9YKtIE9R0iyezm7txwEzVzYaMXog5tbtcpZHSk

Ahead of Her Time: Equine Artist Virginia Orison

I've written before about the great importance of horse books and magazines in the life of young model horse collectors in the 1950s, '60s and '70s. One of the most important sources of horse-related information -- and temptation -- was Western Horseman magazine.

One of the best things about going to the pharmacy to leaf through the latest issue of Western Horseman every month, was the display advertising with photos of the items for sale: not just tack and western wear, but also horse-themed books and notecards and jewelry and art prints and figurines. It was enough to melt the mind of a horsey kid who only got between 10 and 25 cents a week allowance.

And in so many issues of Western Horseman were horse figurines that were way outside my five-and-dime-store budget: original works of art by Virginia Orison (1912-1970) of Blackfoot, Idaho.

If you saw them at an antique store or estate sale and didn't know what they were, you might pass the Orison horses by, because they lack the extreme detail we're used to seeing in model horse figurines these days.  But they are tiny pieces of Midcentury equine history indeed.

Occasionally Orison's horse figurines turn up inside the model horse hobby.  My Facebook friend Nicci Noel has found two of the Quarter Horses.  One is the Quarter Horse mold in palomino, with a western saddle.

Note the detail on the base.

The saddle is removable. 

And the horse is signed on the underside of his belly.

Nicci's second Virginia Orison Quarter Horse has a hair mane and tail, and is mounted on a lamp. 

Despite his condition issues, this Quarter Horse still has a great deal of character.

Recently I started searching for information on Virginia Orison and her equine art.  Orison and her husband Jim were well-known in the Idaho horse community.  For a time, she was the head of the Intermountain Arabian Horse Association.  The Orisons' names appear regularly in Idaho horse show results during the 1950s and 1960s. This May 18, 1952 article in the Idaho State Journal talks about their chestnut Arabian stallion, Tarih AHR 5984 (Olnatar x Rozala).

(Yes, the newspaper spelled the horse's name wrong in the caption.)

Sidebar: Arabian horse history fans will be interested to know that Tarih was descended from some of the most famous horses of their day, including those owned by the Crabbet Arabian Stud, the Kellogg Ranch, and the Maynesboro Stud.  The Orisons also gained local fame with a son and daughter of Tarih, Safarih and Bintarih.

Even in the mid-1940s, Virginia Orison's fame as a designer of horse figurines was beginning to spread.  This April 19, 1946 article in the Idaho Falls, Idaho Post-Register includes a photo of her Arabian horse in western tack that won a prize at the state fair in 1945.

This article describes the horse figurines as being made of clay. It also shows us that Virginia Orison was something of a Renaissance Woman.  

Virginia Orison was a "rodeo queen, calf roper, cowgirl, farmer-rancher's wife, musician, and civic worker" in addition to being an artist.

Orison's earliest model horse designs 
included Arabians and Thoroughbreds. 

Orison also designed Quarter Horses and Palominos in the 1940s. This article says her first model was of a Palomino, and that the figurines averaged 9 inches tall.

Virginia Orison started riding horses
when she was 3 years old.

The same story appeared in the June 2, 1946 issue of the Salt Lake City Tribune. It included photos of Orison, an Arabian without tack, and a Thoroughbred with English tack.

On September 26, 1949, the Post-Register reported that a local draft horse owner had commissioned Orison to design scale models of his Shire horses.  The article says Orison had moved her 3D equine art into a factory made from a converted chicken coop in the country.

By 1951, Orison was taking out ads for the most popular breeds of her equine art in Western Horseman magazine.  I've also seen her ads in old copies of Horse Lover's magazine. 

Over the years, readers saw a number of her designs. The horses were offered with or without tack, customized to particular colors and markings as the buyer desired. The earliest ads show a base price of $5.00 (without tack) to $10.00 (with tack), which underscores the fact that these were not toys -- they were decorative objects to enhance the horse lover's environment.  As the years went on, the prices increased.

This Appaloosa could be mounted on a trophy base 
with a "sun ray plate and engraving"
or on a "lamp with western shade."

The Arabian also came "with or without real mane and tail."

The American Saddlebred could be customized
as a 5-gaited or 3-gaited horse.

Here's one of Orison's Arabians in western tack, mounted on the base of a lamp.

This ad for Orison's Morgan horse design shows that she was taking orders via a location in California, where she lived for three years before returning to Idaho.

An article in the April 3, 1966 Idaho State Journal describes Orison's horses as being made from "clay and wood composition" based on her original clay models.  The reporter described the variety of Orison's work, including cattle, and noted that by this time, the mid-1960s, her work had been purchased by collectors all over the world.

"A Brahma bull, a cow-girl on a small Arabian horse, an Arabian with rider dressed in authentic Arabian costume, an Arabian with rider dressed in western costume, and a model of 'Black Jack," the horse in President Kennedy's funeral procession."

"Arabians, Quarter Horse, American Saddlebred, Appaloosa, Morgan, Tennessee Walker, show Shetland pony, Pinto, Palomino, thoroughbred, Hackney, Standardbred, Mule, Burro, Donkey, Clydesdale, Percheron, Suffolk, Shire, Belgian and others...calf roper and two, four, six and eight-horse hitches."

Here's an ad for the calf roper from an old horse magazine.

Virginia Orison died on November 1970, at the age of 58.  Her obituary appeared in the Idaho State Journal on the 22nd.

Why isn't Virginia Orison's name better known in the world of model horse collecting? It's possible that few people remember her simply because the older people in the hobby today were still children during her heyday and could not afford her work. Then, too, Orison's horse figurines were not toys; rather, they were decorative objects, lamps, and trophy tops. Prolific as she was as an individual, Orison was creating each piece by hand, rather than having them mass-produced.

Another major factor appears to be that the figurines made of "clay and wood composition" were pretty fragile under their three coats of lacquer, and many have started to disintegrate over the decades.  Still, you see them from time to time on eBay and in model horse groups on Facebook. 


Virginia Orison's work foreshadowed the model horse hobbyists' fascination with horse breeds, conformation, and tack. Starting in the 1940s alongside Gladys Brown Edwards metal horses, and overlapping the 1960s-70s heydays of Breyer, Hartland, Hagen-Renaker, or the Marx "Best of the West" series, Virginia Orison was helping to pave the way for more realistic model horse figurines in the home.

Here's a link to several more of them via the Model Horse Gallery.

http://www.modelhorsegallery.info/O/Orison/VOhome.html

Hold Them Lightly

Everyone has different taste in model horses. "I only collect mint condition model horses," some people tell me.  "If it's not perfect, I don't even want to look at it."

And that's okay. I like mint condition model horses, too. My own collection contains a few undamaged model horses.  A couple of those have always lived in well-padded boxes in the closet because they'd be hard to replace.  

Mostly, though, the members of my herd look like survivors of a war zone, with their scuffs and scrapes, their missing ears and tail tips, their reglued legs.  Since I gave up participating in live model horse shows decades ago, it doesn't matter to me if they've been professionally restored.  I keep them because I still just like them, damage and all.

January 17 is the anniversary of the 1994 Northridge Earthquake -- a good time to remember and reflect on just how fragile the items in our hobby can be. 

Because there's nothing like a natural disaster to remind us that, much as we enjoy our model horses, wonderful as they are, old friends and treasured possessions they may be --

-- there's always the possibility they're not going to stay in perfect condition forever. I guess I've always known that, but in January 1994 I found out what it really means. 

Several dozen, mostly ceramic, model horse figurines,
a few seconds after the 1994 Northridge Earthquake. 

I hope you never wake up to a scene like this, or have to run away from your home and your hobby because of fire or flood. And I hope no one ever chides you for "not taking better care of your horse figurines" after a natural disaster strikes.  If the natural disaster is big enough to take down a wall of your house, no amount of Quake-Hold or museum wax is going to protect your model horse collection.  

For many collectors, especially those who own several valuable pieces, having a separate insurance policy on your model horses might be worth considering.  

If you have more than a few model horses, it's also worth your time to create a written list or spreadsheet of what you own, so it will be easier to deal with when the time comes for your model horses to pass into other collectors' hands.

The model horse jigsaw puzzles in the aftermath of the magnitude 6.8 earthquake.
The force of the 'quake pulverized some of the ceramic horses' legs.
Some of them ended up with other collectors who have the skills
to rebuild tiny ceramic horse legs and ears and tails.

I also hope that, if you ever do lose a valuable and/or sentimental favorite member of your model horse herd, you'll be able to get to the point where you can come to terms with that loss.  And I hope that, once you get to the point when you can start to rebuild your collection, your friends will give (not just sell) you some wonderful pieces from their own model horse herds.

The most-damaged survivor in my little herd is a venerable, and otherwise drop-dead gorgeous, Monrovia-era Hagen-Renaker large "Amir."  He was a victim not of a major natural disaster, but an everyday household accident when his previous owner had him.  She had set him "just for a minute" on a windowsill, when a gust of wind blew against the curtains.  The curtains popped the "Amir" into the air and he fell to the floor in an instant.  His previous owner painstakingly glued him back together -- a small miracle, of sorts.

He still looks sort of okay from a distance.

In reality, though, he had broken apart into more than 20 pieces. And up close you can see every one of them.

"Amir" still has fault lines all over his face and body.  I can't even imagine asking a professional restorer to unglue him and make him look "mint" again.  

Not just because of the cost. It's because I like him just the way he is. Repairs and all.

He won't last forever, but in the meantime "Amir" reminds me that I need to be resilient, too. When that 6.8 magnitude earthquake happened -- a couple of decades after he suffered all that damage from his mishap on a windowsill -- the only damage he sustained was one re-broken leg.  I glued it back on, and he's been standing (yes, with museum wax under his hooves) on my shelves ever since.

Earlier this year a good friend went to an estate sale and found a second Hagen-Renaker large "Amir" for me, in excellent condition.  

I just like him, too.  Not just because he's in good condition, but because my friend went out of her way to obtain him for me.

Cherish your model horses.  Repair or restore them, or let them go to someone else graciously, when they are damaged. And remember what Nazi concentration camp survivor Corrie ten Boom was quoted as saying:

“Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open.”

Customized Model Horses from the mid-1970s to mid-1980s

Every time I attend a "live" model horse event, I keep an eye out for old friends. Not just the human kind, but also the "vintage custom" kind of model horse figurine.   Vintage customs are growing in popularity, and sometimes I'm lucky enough to find them (in varying states of disrepair) among other used model horses for sale.

My own experience with customized model horses dates back to the early 1970s, when I first became aware that model horse collectors who were also artists repainted, repositioned, and/or added details such as "hair" manes and tails to model horses.

Some of the earliest "repaints" (as we called them at the time) were pretty straightforward -- oil-based or acrylic details like a blaze and stockings added to a solid-colored model horse.  Or, collectors would repaint the entire horse. 

Some of the earliest customized horses I've come across recently were done by artist Mary Ann Black between 1973 and 1975.  "MAB," as she was also known at the time, was one of the first brave souls to customize ceramic Hagen-Renaker horses.  Mary Ann would paint the horses and re-fire them in a kiln, making the finish more or less permanent.   Sometimes she would glue hair manes and tails onto the horses as well. Here is a haired Hagen-Renaker "Zilla" Arabian foal.  You can see that she simply added a black pinto pattern on top of the foal's original white factory finish, and then added a hair mane and tail.

Knowing what Hagen-Renakers from the 1970s sell for these days, it may be difficult to believe that people actually repainted them, but bear in mind that adult HR horses sold for less than $5 each back then.    

Most of the model horses I have from the 1970s and '80s were "cold painted," meaning repainted in acrylics or oils over the original finish of the horse.  Here are some examples.

Repainted Breyer Classic Arabian Mare by Sue Daigle:

Repainted Breyer Stablemate Arabian stallion by Cynthia Gardner:

And, finally, this fellow survived a major earthquake. His legs are messy with glue, but he abides: Hagen-Renaker "Lippet" Morgan stallion repainted by Nancy Strowger.

(Yes, someday I will find an artist who can restore his legs without messing up the artist's signature from 1979 on the sole of one hoof!)

If you'd like more information on customized model horses...

Discussions of vintage model horses come up often in the Facebook group Vintage Hobbyists -- Then and Now:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1478565045771407/?ref=bookmarks

The Vintage Custom Model Equine Center website is here:

http://www.vintagecustommodelequinecenter.org/home.html

Customized model horses are more popular than ever. Many model horse collectors look forward each year to NaMoPaiMo -- National Model Painting Month.  You can find out more information on it here:

http://braymere.blogspot.com/p/national-model-painting-month-namopaimo.html

I wrote a longer, more detailed version of the story of Mary Ann Black's mixed media Hagen-Renaker horses for the Hagen-Renaker Collectors Club Newsletter in October 2018.  HRCC is a low-cost way to learn more about these iconic American figurines and the people who collect them. The HRCC website is here:

http://www.hagen-renakercollectorsclub.com/