Sunday, June 27, 2021

Painting my horse collection


A selection from the collection
Watercolour and crayon sketch
©2021 Charlene Brown

I’m the layout editor for a publication called Happenings put out by the Associates of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Besides writing about the group’s fundraising activities, we have always invited members to submit stories about their own art-related international travel. But those stories dried up about a year ago, a few weeks after the pandemic got a grip on ‘happenings’ of any kind.

Fortunately someone suggested we invite people to write about their collections. This series has been very popular, with stories about collections ranging from Western Canadian paintings and Inuit stone cut prints, through opera LP covers and jail keys to ceramic vegetables and illuminated manuscripts. More and more Associates have accepted our invitation to write about their stuff as they discover that the collections don’t need to be particularly valuable (though some are) just interesting. My collection is scheduled for publication next year.

People often include stories about the variety of circumstances that got them started on their collections. Here is mine.

When we moved to Dubai and I was planning to do a lot of travelling, I thought I might collect elephants from various places. We already had a very good ‘starter’ set. My husband had several huge rosewood elephants he got in India in the 60s and I had a tiny brightly painted herd from Sri Lanka given to me in the early 80s. But then it occurred to me that many of the countries (like, every country not in South Asia or Africa) to which I hoped to travel would be unlikely to have a typical elephant that I could add to my collection.

Collecting horses made more sense — lots of countries have iconic horses. Also, I am a Horse — it’s my Chinese Zodiac animal.

From left to right, beginning in the top row, the horses in the painting above are:

· Etruscan horse and chariot: the Etruscan civilization in Northern Italy was assimilated by Rome in the 6th century BCE. However, this particular stylized version of Etruscan sculpture, although obtained in Italy and identified as a Riproduzione Archeologica, is a mid-20th century CE American design.

· A 21st century Native-American themed ‘collectible’

· Authentic replica of the Flying Horse of Gansu (200 CE) also known less poetically as The Galloping Horse Treading on a Flying Pigeon

· Arabian show horse purchased from a vendor who had dozens of them spread out on the sidewalk beside the El Djem Roman amphitheatre in Tunisia. Probably not an authentic replica

· Traditional Dalecarlian carved and painted horse obtained in Stockholm

· Traditional Oaxacan wood carving of a flying unicorn or alicorn obtained in Huatulco.

· Sharjah Horse: traditional wood carving with inlaid brass and copper armour, from the Emirate of Sharjah, near Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

· Authentic replicas (larger one has a seal from the National Archaeological Museum in Athens) of a bronze horse from the Greek Geometric Period (900–700 BCE)

The reason I decided on this montage, rather than a grouping of the whole stable, is that they are by no means the same size. A couple are about 15 cm high, and most of the rest are from 6 to 8 cm high — except for my favourite, the Sharjah Horse, which is 60 cm high.


Sunday, June 20, 2021

An introduction to my horse collection


Arabian
Oil and gasoline
Abdulwahed Al-Mawlawi

The second medium listed above for ‘Arabian’ is not a typo.  When I first saw this painting I was struck by the intensity of what I assumed was watercolour because of the wet-in-wet effects. Abdulwahed explained he achieved this watercolour ‘look’ by painting with oils thinned with gasoline, then dripping undiluted gasoline onto the wet painting.  Don’t try this at home, kids!


Arab horsemen
Watercolour
Patricia Al Fakri

I met both artists whose work is shown here, Abdulwahed, a Qatari, and Patricia, who is British, at the Dubai International Arts Centre when I worked there in the 1990s.

We all bought a lot of each other’s paintings at the Arts Centre, and the reason I selected these two for this blog post, is that I’ve just embarked on a project to document my collection of horses - paintings, archaeological replicas, carvings, and just plain collectables.  

I haven’t ever painted any horses myself, so what I’d planned was to do one now depicting some of my most interesting carvings, sculptures etc and then to write a blog post about it.  That painting is taking quite a bit more time than I thought it would, so these paintings are introducing the topic. Maybe my (somewhat less professional) horse painting will be ready in time for next week’s blog post.

Sunday, June 13, 2021

Another spectacular look at Afghanistan


From the Khyber Pass
Watercolour, crayon and computer
©2021 Charlene Brown

This painting is based on a combination of photos of the Khyber Pass found on the internet. I’ve never been to Afghanistan, but my husband went there several times when he was stationed in Pakistan and Kashmir with the UN. He usually flew into Kabul, but once traveled by bus over the Khyber Pass pictured here. 

Despite the attraction of beautiful mountain landscapes, I will not be adding this or last week’s location to my bucket list unlike the two mystery destinations I wrote about last month. They were in Portugal, BTW.

 

Sunday, June 6, 2021

This just in… Afghanistan is beautiful!


Bamiyan Valley
Watercolour, crayon and computer
©2021 Charlene Brown

I’ve written about and painted Afghanistan once before, in 2014, describing a scene in Kabul as ‘not a pretty sight’ like most of what I knew of Afghanistan. 

So I was surprised when, watching ‘The United States of Al’ a new program on TV (No, it’s not on either PBS or the Knowledge Network) I heard the Bamiyan Valley described as beautiful. I’d heard of the Bamiyan Valley before, but was only familiar with the gaping hollows in a cliff face, left when the huge ‘Buddhas of Bamiyan’ were  destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.  

The valley is in fact spectacularly beautiful, and very paintable, as are many mountain locations in Afghanistan, another one of which I’ll write about next week.