We’ve spent this week looking at the art of the horse, that swift spirit to which our peoples adapted and then adopted so quickly and thoroughly. For many of us, it’s an ancestral affinity, one that goes back centuries.
My first horse was a tiny dark brown pony, one that equine geneticists call “liver chestnut.” My third pony was a bay, nearly a full-sized horse, young, free-spirited, half-wild, and too much for me or for my parents. But the second one, an elderly mare, was a classic Indian pony: a bright brown and white paint.
In recent years, we have had three: a brown and white mare who has now achieved elder status; a less-common black and white mare who is no longer with us (she was jointly owned and her other human bought out Wings’s share); and a perfect Indian fire pony, a big red and white gelding full of high spirits and affectionate attitude.
Our peoples have always felt a special connection to Appaloosas and paint horses. Perhaps it’s a perception of them as their own artists, their bodies a genetic canvas for Nature’s paints and brushes. Perhaps it’s simply an accident of breeding combined with opportunity: It may be that they were once common, and therefore accessible; or rare, and thus highly prized. Whatever the genesis, paint horses in particular have long been regarded as the archetypal Indian pony.
It’s one of the reasons why paints are so ubiquitous in Native art. You see them in ledger art, other paintings, even in Wings’s sterling silver horses. And occasionally, you get to see a paint horse in figurative sculpture, a natural paint formed by the medium itself.
Such is the case with today’s featured work. From its description in the Other Artists: Sculpture gallery here on the site:
Randy Roughface (Ponca) has carved this sweet little vintage-style mustang from orange alabaster so vivid it looks like Mexican onyx. Cool and smooth to the touch, but shot through with brilliant fiery reds, this little horse emerges out of the bands and lines of the stone itself. Carving measures roughly 3″ X 2″.
Orange alabaster
$45 + shipping, handling, and insurance
I love this little horse, in no small part because he reminds me of my own: a quarter horse named for the red earth of this land and our peoples. But while mine is a large creature, tall and powerful with an insatiable appetite, this one is a small being, one that is distinctly low-cost and low-maintenance. Still, he embodies that equally distinctive sensibility and fiery spirit of the Indian pony, one in the color of fire and shape of the flame.
We began the work week with a fire pony. It seems only fitting to end it with another.
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