Second Impressions

As I was jotting down some notes at work yesterday, I realized that I’ll probably have enough for at two more posts about this year’s BreyerFest. I’ll get to the most urgent business first.

Paper Samplers: it probably won’t be until the end of the week before I can print up any paper copies of the Sampler; that would involve getting some equipment out of the supply closet. While I made significant progress cleaning up my office on Monday, a few other things came up that I have to deal with first before I can get back to excavation mode.

The Virtual Component: I hope I didn’t give the wrong impression with my last post regarding this year’s BreyerFest. I am absolutely 100 percent in favor of a virtual component of BreyerFest, and would be more than happy to contribute to future versions of it. There are a lot of people who have physical or financial obstacles that make an in-person BreyerFest difficult, and I’ve always believed that the model horse hobby should be as inclusive as possible. 

In fact, I think that the hobby’s accessibility is what makes it superior to the real horse world, in some ways.

My problem is more of a personal one: for me, BreyerFest is as much about physical escape as it is a mental one. I also see the model horse community as my “other family”, and I treat BreyerFest like a family reunion. In short: I miss seeing my model horse family. I don’t know if I could take another year of it being virtual-only. 

Purchases: Last minute purchases included a Gloss Josie and a Gloss Rheverence. Gloss Bay always suckers me in, and in spite of my general dislike of Buckskin Pintos, the Rheverence looks pretty nice, especially in Gloss. 

I was not entirely surprised that the Store Specials didn’t sell out: once I saw that they were offering everything in Gloss, and both on backorder, that basically solved the store problem. There wasn’t much money to be made in speculating, so the speculators moved on to other things (Pollock, apparently.) 

I would also not be surprised if, going forward, Reeves reserves Gloss versions of the Store Special to Virtual Attendees. Among other things; that is a topic for another day. 

All the other stuff that’s coming: my second Celebration Horse, the Best of BreyerFest Stablemates Set, the Matte Josie, the umbrella, the ceramic mug, the “Team Gloss” and “Team Matte” magnets, Seurat, Ansel, the Surprise and Uffington. 

That’s more than I wanted to buy, but pickings were a little slim at the stores I went to on Thursday. Purchases there included not one, but two Buckeye Mules with completely different facial shading, the newer Classic Riding Set with Chestnut Duchess, a pretty nice pinto Fjord, and some customizing supplies, though I’ll be buying/ordering more by the end of the week. 

I also bought a #930 Classic Black Appaloosa on the Might Tango mold. 

Instead doing a Memory Box for this year’s BreyerFest, I’m going to do a Joseph Cornell box, since it fits with the theme and I’ve always wanted to do one that included a model horse in some way. If you’re not familiar with Joseph Cornell, this place is a good start:

http://www.artnet.com/artists/joseph-cornell/

One of the stores I visited had a bunch of the Appaloosa – not a big seller for them, obviously – but I kept coming back to it and realized why: he was the perfect candidate for this project!

Next post will actually have pictures, I promise. The camera is another thing I need to find. It has to be here somewhere, I swear...