Off with their heads!

Tribute to a Tack Goddess

Well big shock, I forgot my camera at the show this weekend, but I will get some pictures of those stablemate remakes soon after I get my new tripod....
So instead lets start with a lesson on switching heads! Now I love to remake, and I like to paint, and most of all, I am crazy for performance showing but HATE to make tack! So I am very fortunate to have three tack goddesses that are willing to trade for horses. I would like to take a moment to share the stories behind how I met each of them. Today stars the lady who was responsible for making the very first LSQ western saddle I ever had and is totally at fault for thus getting me hooked on performance, Kathy Wiggins.
Years ago when I first started remaking and went to a few live shows I saw performance as something amazing, and wanted to get into it. But being in college I didn't have extra cash to buy tack....I saw this beautiful WP set with this amazing beaded bridle, breastcollar, and matching halter and I had to have it. It was made by Kathy but I didn't get it from her directly. So I had this saddle for years, it was always my favorite, took it to Germany where it was great admired as well.....BUT during a rather nasty divorce it and many other of my personal belonging magically disappeared. Years go by and just a few years ago I was selling some extra Aegis resins, Kathy wrote about them....wait, is this THE Kathy Wiggins, the Wigmeister?? Turns out it was and Kathy has regretted it ever since! She is a GREAT friend and feel so lucky to know her, and the stuff she can make is amazing. Best of all I can talk to her about everything and anything, and with all this talent goes a fantastic sense of humor.
She has this incredible ability to see a picture and just make a tack item, no matter how unusual. Her knowledge is just unreal. I have never understood how model horses can sell for so much with what I know is relatively few hours of work, yet tack never seems to reflect that as much. So I am telling all of you, worship your tack goddesses because they are talented treasures that deserve so much more that what they get!


Kathy made me this portuguese set, I really need to take a picture of just the seat on this saddle, it looks so real and the stirrups are REAL carved wood! The horse is a remade Keltic Salinero and I remade the bull out of a Herden steer.

This parade set is my favorite. All the leather has this incredible braided trim, looks like a real edge on a saddle! I made the silver pieces and the doll for this set, so its a bit of both of us and one of my most treasured pieces

She made my NAN winning spanish tack, it has every little detail down to the little handhold things on the saddle! There is so much more to share too!

Kathy is working on some new special things for me, and the goddess needs a sacrifice...Kathy loves gaited horses, and we decided that Godiva, the Kilbourne morgan, would make a neat jennet with a new head......

Godiva's beautiful head did not go to waste, here it is on a Miz Charisma body. The finished horse top tenned at NAN last year.....

I decided to use on of the Lucas Iberian heads. First this is to take off all the extra resin behind the cheek bones. I use a large sanding drum for this. The blue line marks where I sand too. This makes it much easier to get a nice joint to the body.

Okay this stablemate shouldn't be here, why can't I delete the picture?????

Below is the Godiva body. You can see I sanding away all the edges from the neck after the head was cut off. Its always better to take extra off. That way when you sculpt in the new part it will not look so bulky. I drill two holes in the neck and two into the head, fill with apoxy, then insert armature wire to wire the two together. No way the head can come back off without a really good saw!

More tomorrow, I didn't take as many in progress pics this time, kinda got distracted by the Masters (Go Lefty!) but will share with you many frankenstein photos this week!