The new mule is DONE!

Happy Mardi Gras Everybody!

He's available for pre-order on my website now.
http://www.eponastudio.com/mulemedallion.htm

Curses! Foiled again!

After the last baking, our poor mules ears were starting to look pretty crispy, so I've wrapped them in aluminum foil to hopefully protect them from further blackening. Louisiana is known for how great the blackened fish is, but mules...maybe not so much. The rest of the foil is supporting some delicate bits so that they don't sag in the oven.

The one hame that is actually visible on this piece is supported internally by a straightened paper clip and the texture on that fleece pad you see peeking out from under the color was created with the end of a broken stick. Honestly, I do use real sculpting tools too. I swear. Sometimes the best way to get the job done involves getting a little creative and it seems to be happening that way a lot on this guy.

I think that all of the various straps and buckles are in place now. All that remains is the part we've all been waiting for... flowers!

Collar and blinkers

I've laid the base for the collar down, although the bottom will need to be fattened up a bit yet. The blinkers (or winkers if you prefer) are in place. There are still plenty of buckles and straps yet to add as well as the hames. No I didn't know what a "hame" was either, but here's a chart with all the lingo:

Most of the bridle is done

Now that's what I call mixed media

The bridles that these mules wear are covered in these decorative rounded rivets, as you can see in the close up at left. Now, I could have sculpted each of those separately, but that would be a lot like work. If I wanted to work, I wouldn't have chosen to be an artist right?

So instead I started looking around the house for ideas. It had been my plan to use beads (they work great for eyeballs) but everything I had was either too big or too small. I felt like Goldilocks! Finally, found the object that was just right. Those purple arrows are pointing to coriander seeds off of the spice rack.

I have a cool new sculpting tool now too. My sweet husband went to the store and brought home some new tweezers and then filed the tips down to almost a needle point so I could place the coriander with some degree of control. I know spices are an odd thing to add to a sculpture, but I have yet to actually cook with the stuff, so why not?

More mule!

A little bit of the halter has been added...

The mules of New Orleans

Here is an excerpt from an article that I recently wrote for The Brayer, the bi-monthly publication of the American Donkey and Mule Society:

"I went to New Orleans’ French Quarter for the beautiful architecture, or maybe for the food, or the history, or the music, but certainly not for the mules. The mules, in fact, came as a bit of a surprise, yet there I sat at the famous Café du Monde enjoying my chicory coffee and beignets and staring at about a dozen gorgeous carriages lined up and waiting across the street. Not a single one was pulled by a horse…not even one.

Any footsore tourist who wants to be shown the sights can pay their $12 for a short tour or a rather steeper price of $60 to be taken around town for about two hours.

New Orleans being what it is, even such a handsome crew (or should I say krewe?) apparently needed a little extra decoration and this time it

came in the form of flowers. Most of the mules’ bridles were… ahem…jazzed up with anything from a single silk flower to an entire bouquet. It’s a charming touch and really reflects the character of the entire French Quarter to my mind, a place where everything is decorated and there is live music absolutely everyplace you go."

This brings us to one of my current works in progress. I've recently developed a passion for bas relief sculpture (called medallions by model horse enthusiasts, although in the art world the word "medallion" refers to something a little more specific). Being not entirely a two dimensional work, nor exactly a three dimensional sculpture, it presents some very unique challenges. My second foray into the art form is the recently completed Son of the Sands, an Arabian stallion against a background inspired by Islamic geometric patterns. (My first bas relief has been lost and shall hopefully remain that way forever. I think I have a photo of it somewhere. You will never see it. If I find the photo, I'm destroying it. Not every piece can be a winner, you know.) Number three is going to be a flower bedecked carriage mule roughly adapted from the bay mule above. I'm working in polymer clay on this one. This is what the mule looked like shortly before the first baking. I think I tweaked a few minor elements between taking this picture and the actual baking after talking to Leah, my authority on all things mule. So, now I have a naked mule with all the tack and flora to be added in the next week if there's time in between the custom order backlog that I'm currently plowing through and finally starting the next sculpture, Bridon Belfrey (more on him later!).