Pottery + Model Horses = Nerdy Bliss

My friends, I have a confession to make. I am a pot head. Yes, you read that right.

I. Love. Pottery.

There, I've said it. Now you all know my terrible secret. Model horses are (obviously) my main collecting passion, but I must confess to having a pottery addiction as well. There are pots all over my apartment. I seek them out to admire in museums. I even want to make my own. The horror!

Zuni, Hopi, and Acoma pots

I'm not sure I can quantify what it is I love about glazed ceramics. I am drawn to soft, matte glazes...

As well as brilliant glossy finishes.

I definitely have a thing for earth tones---shades of brown, grey, blue, and green.

I have pottery that was made near my home town.

Red Wing Pottery from Red Wing, MN

I even have a pot that once belonged to a famous person who owned a famous horse.

A pot from the estate of Penny Chenery, owner of Secretariat

But my particular pottery interest is Puebloan pottery made by the Native tribes of the American southwest. I grew up surrounded by Native American artefacts---Navajo rugs, Chippewa beadwork, Zuni jewelry, and Acoma pottery---and I can finally afford to indulge my interest in Native arts on a small scale. 

(The Black Bisque Quail is Hagen-Renaker;
the pots and black horse are Native made.)

Sometimes, my model horse and pottery addictions intertwine---I do collect a lot of ceramic horses and animals after all---and they display beautifully together on my shelves. 

One of my ceramic horses is actually a piece of Native pottery.

Santa Clara horse figurine

I also have a great deal of interest in ancient pottery, especially Ancestral Puebloan (aka Anasazi) pottery, in particular the beautiful and enigmatic figural Mimbres pieces. Such pots are far out of my price range, not to mention the due diligence needed to buy legally collected ancient pots, but happily I live near the Field Museum which has an incredible collection I enjoy visiting regularly.

Just one of many display cases full of amazing Ancestral
Puebloan pots at the Field Museum

I have also had the pleasure of visiting the lovely Chapin Mesa Archaeological Museum at Mesa Verde National Park near Cortez, Colorado.

Me geeking out over pots

My second love when it comes to ancient pottery is what is generally lumped together as Greek. This includes the early Minoan, Mycenean, and Geometric styles as well as the later, better known black-figure and red-figure pottery of Classical Greece. As you can see from my Native pottery collection, in addition to earth tones, I am also drawn to patterns of black and white or black, white, and red.

In terms of ancient Greek pottery, I love the simple geometric designs of the oldest Minoan and Mycenean pieces (circa 2600-800 BCE)---concentric bands of alternating color, patterns of circles and spirals, key patterns, and more. I am also hugely enamored of the many wonderful figural Minoan pots covered in googly-eyed octopi and other sea creatures.

L to R: Photos by Wolfgang Sauber, Olaf Tausch,
and Marie-Lan Nguyen

Styles in Greece transitioned from patterns of predominantly black designs on white backgrounds to the Classical form termed "black figure" in the 600s BCE. These were pieces featuring black designs painted on a reddish-orange background with fine details picked out in white. The decoration also morphed to feature the human figure predominantly, especially scenes from mythology or athletic competitions. The finest examples of Greek pottery were very often prizes awarded at various athletic games held every 2 or 4 years depending on the location. Some would have been large bowls intended as vessels for mixing wine while others were beautifully decorated containers for olive oil, a valuable commodity.

Needless to say, I was hugely excited when I saw Nemea, the BreyerFest 2023 special run inspired by this black-figure amphora depicting a chariot race in the British Museum. This pot was made in Athens circa 410-400 BCE and was found in Cyrenaica (modern Libya). It would likely have been a prize for an athletic competition, presumably a chariot race.

Photo by Carole Raddato from Frankfurt, Germany, CC
BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Breyer artist (as well as fantastic artist in her own right) Heather Puleo did a magnificent job translating this work into a Breyer design.

Photo from breyerhorses.com

Breyer clearly has my number when it comes to all of the recent models inspired by historical figures or ancient art. I can't wait to add Nemea to my shelf along with Boudicca and Knossos!