Ice, Ice Baby!

I just found out over the weekend that this "remodeling" process will leave me with 30 feet less shelf space. So a modest culling of the herd has now turned into a major one.

It would have been nice if they had told me about this when the process started two years ago, when I could have modified my spending habits slightly, and done a less drastic accommodation over time. Nope.

And since I can neither afford to move out, or rent a storage unit, I must now add "significant herd reduction" to my list of labors. I’ve managed to get about two-thirds of the way through so far, with a busy work week ahead.

That means less intricate topics for the interim, I guess. The Tenite stuff will have to be put on the backburner.

The next Collector’s Choice selections are up for voting, and for once, I actually really like all three: a Flaxen Chestnut Bouncer, a Gloss Charcoal Pinto Big Ben, and a Gloss Dapple Chocolate Ethereal.

My favorite is the Ethereal: I love that color. If it’s anywhere near the color of a true Rocky Mountain Horse, he’ll be stunning in person. We can’t be sure from the photo: as usual, the image available to us is awful, and too small to manipulate effectively in Photoshop.

I hope it doesn’t hurt his chances in the voting. It’d be nice to have a more affordable, regular run Ethereal in the line. All of the other releases on this mold have either been limited, or expensive. All I have is the 2007 BreyerFest Times Square (whom I love, and is not being culled - no way!)

He’s also my favorite for another reason: the name. There was a rather heated discussion about the Web Special Silver Snow on Blab when he came out; some hobbyists wanted Reeves to produce more of them to satisfy the obvious demand - and to cover confirmed orders that were canceled later in the week. I wasn’t keen on the idea for a multitude of ideas: it would set a bad precedent, the value of the model was partially dependent on the initial piece count, etc. My suggestion was a second December Web Special with a similar piece count: a Gloss Charcoal Othello that I called "Black Ice."

The Ethereal would make a more than adequate substitute, I think. (And for the record, I’m not taking credit for the idea; it’s just a happy coincidence. I also happen to think that some ideas are so strong and so natural that they come up again and again. You know, like Dapple Gray Lady Phases.)

I was initially put off by Ethereal’s rather florid appearance when he finally arrived on the scene in 2006, but I’ve warmed up to the mold considerably since then. I’m not big into "fancified" horses with big hair, but it works on him. He has a beautiful silhouette, too; I was big into making Breyer silhouettes a few years ago, and I was struck by his lovely contours:


(Roemer makes a nice silhouette, too. Really!)

There was a Chocolate Silver Dapple Ethereal in the 2008 BreyerFest Auctions. I can’t recall him specifically, since most auction pieces get filed into the "beautiful but unattainable" part of my brain, and that file gets purged on a regular basis, just to minimize my suffering.

Whether or not I really love an individual auction piece tends to be irrelevant to the purging process. The ones I do remember tend to hit some hot button - a new technique or color, or the reintroduction of an old one. Or it's a rare combination of mold, color and markings, like the Dark Bay/Brown Peruvian Paso with the heavily-spotted stockings. (Favorite mold + a favorite color + favorite markings = Swoon!)

From the photos I’ve seen of him online, that piece seems to be lighter than the proposed Black Ice, but with the quality of the Reeves’s photos, who knows? We’ll have to see how the voting turns out first, and whether we’ll even get to see him on the shelf.

I am concerned that the type of voting poll they’ve enlisted this time around allows for multiple votes from anonymous voters. I am not fond of anonymous online polls: you sacrifice accuracy for the convenience of automation. A few overly enthusiastic voters with too much time on their hands could seriously sway the outcome of the vote, and not necessarily towards the will of the regular voting public.