Naughty Pictures

Had a productive couple of “days off”: finished prepping an old sewing project, made fudge, cleaned up and transferred some stuff off my old computer’s hard drive, and unboxed some horses:

I remember when I was a kid and I’d pick up horse magazines – Western Horseman was my big fave – and I’d giggle at the stud horse photos gloriously detailing their handsome backsides: basically they were a ten-year-old horse-crazy girl’s idea of naughty pictures. So I guess you could say that this is my homage to the “dirty pictures” of my wanton youth….

Featuring the Zodiac Cancer/Lobster Butt and a couple of AQHA Horses – the Blue Roan Warehouse Find/Reissue, and the 75th Anniversary Palomino, whom I am really loving right now. Not enough to go forth and complete the collection, but enough to make me wish that the Glossy Black one really was a thing.

Okay, maybe not, but we’ll get to the reasons why in a moment. In the meantime, Reeves released pics of the African Representative, Namid:

Ah, that luscious solid Dark Bay again! When I Googled images of the Namib Desert Horses, I saw a lot of solid Dark Bays, which makes sense since they are the descendants of cavalry mounts.

It appears that I am in the minority in finding her appealing, though; while I was away doing not-Internet things, we apparently entered that awkward part of the year where all the cool kids decide to dislike everything and casually brag about how little they’ll actually spend at BreyerFest, or if they’ll even buy a ticket at all.

As my recent experiences with Reeves issuing exactly the kinds of Special Runs that I dream for – like Marshall, and now Dugan – well, that does not always work out as planned, either. I’d rather be content in finding worth and beauty in the things that are accessible to me, than fret over beautiful things made to my specifications that I cannot have.

That’s one of the points of art connoisseurship – to reconsider something you would not normally have considered before. So instead of first looking for things to dislike about any given release, my first instinct is to try to find things I like about it, or at least find interesting.

I know sometimes the dismissiveness comes from a defensive place: it’s easier to collect when you’re able to eliminate the majority of new items out of hand. And I don’t love everything, myself: Flockies weird me out, I’m still having a hard time loving Desatado, and I really don’t understand the fascination so many have for the Exclusive Event Othello “Puttin’ on the Ritz”. (He’s green, and not in a good way!)

But still, I wish we could all be a little less catty, and a little bit more like the ten-year-old horse-crazy kids we once were. The ones who thought even the homeliest of horses were still kind of awesome.

For instance, I never expected to like my new AQHA Horses – the Roan, the Palomino, and the Warehouse Find Blue Roan – as much as I do now, but I do. That’s why I’d rather not make an offhand wish for a Glossy Black one, only to have it show up somewhere beyond my reach.