Fly performance

Lisa Smalley is one of the people I met for the first time at this year's BreyerWest. She is as nice as she is talented, which is saying a lot since her talents include sculpting, painting, tackmaking, prop making, doll dressing and performance showing. Oh, and writing, too! I absolutely love this guest post. Thank you, Lisa!

Flying and Showing Performance

by Lisa Smalley

When the dates for BreyerWest were announced, I decided that I wanted to attend and booked my hotel room as soon as the host hotel was announced. This took my plan from just a dream to reality.

As usual, I decided that I wanted to do "all the things" when I went to BreyerWest: model horse show, workshops, and swap meet. The most challenging part was that I decided to show in performance. I had to REALLY think out my performance class setups in advance so that I would have props that were on the smaller side and easier to pack. I opted for some pieces that I could reuse in multiple classes, such as a fence with a gate, jump standards that could work in both hunter and jumper, etc. 

Another thing I like to do sometimes that is really fun for me is to add a component, such as "How many classes can I squeeze goats into?"

The answer was four. Ha!

To make my ridiculous goat self-challenge even better, I decided to finally finish the oil based clay portrait sculpture of one of my LaMancha goats who had passed away. I finished him and molded and cast him, and followed that by doing the same with a running cow sculpture that I had been working on.

However, I had heard that there are some minor difficulties of travelling via plane with solid-cast resin sculptures that have support wires in the legs in your carry-on bag. Luckily, Teresa Buzzell graciously offered to answer any TSA-related questions that those of us travelling to BreyerWest might have. She recommended that I take them out of my bag and put them in their own tray to go through the screening process. I managed to find some small plastic containers at Walmart that my cow and goat fit into, and I lined them with eggcrate type foam. I decided to pack them into a backpack, rather than unpacking them from my carry-on suitcase. They got flagged both on both the departing and returning flight, so following Teresa's advise was very helpful. The TSA employees were all very nice at both airports and tried to make everything easy when we went through the line, and they allowed me to carefully repack them myself when they were finished.

NaMoPaiMo is in February, and BreyerWest occurred at the end of the same month, so I planned to paint a horse that I could show at BreyerWest. The mold that I chose was Breyer's newest Premier Club model Firefly, a standing stock horse sculpted by Morgen Kilbourn. My color choice for her of Black Leopard Appaloosa seemed like a decision of insanity, as I would have less than 3 weeks to complete her. Luckily, getting her painted went pretty smoothly, without any disasters or problems that I have had in the past. Naming stock horses is always fun, and she became "Ida Skipped Town" with the nickname of "Ida".

Per the BreyerWest Open Model Horse Show rules, "cross-entry within the Performance section is limited to two classes outside of a horse's main section". Traditional-size is my scale of choice, and the thought of packing everything into suitcases to take on a plane made me wish that I preferred showing minis! I decided to have two Western horses, one English horse, and one horse that would show in harness and a few English classes. This limited me to four horses total. I purchased the largest carry-on suitcase I could find, and a medium-sized hard sided suitcase as my checked bag. As it got closer to the show, I practiced packing the four of them in my carry-on. It was a bit snug, and with bringing things to sell at the swap meet, I realized that the BreyerWest SR Glossy Lionel was a mold that could be used in performance, so I decided to use him and leave my original fourth horse home to save space.

It was finally time to pack my suitcases. I did not want the horses to go in the checked suitcase, so they were to go in my carry-on. There are two plastic bars that ran down the back of the suitcase inside (they contain the handle that you pull up on your suitcase), and I packed socks and underwear in the low spots around the bars and put a pair of soft pants on top, to cushion the horses against the bars. The models were packed in fleece pouches, with my rolled-up shirts acting as a buffer on both sides, top, and bottom. I also put an additional pouch at the bottom, since extra padding is needed for them when the suitcase is being rolled upright. Additional clothes and pouches were placed on top of the horses and filled any available space in the suitcase. 

I had to take only the tack that I absolutely needed for the show, so I found a bag/container that it all fit into and put that in my backpack with my resin goat and cow, so that it would not have to go in the checked suitcase. The props and dolls were packed into the smallest assortment of containers I could get them into, and they went into the checked bag. I was selling model horse pouches at the swap meet, so I lined the suitcase with those and my flannel table cloth to pad and protect the containers of props. (I could have otherwise used clothing or bubble wrap to pad the containers.) My checked bag did arrive on the baggage carousel with an area or two where the plastic had been stressed from being knocked around with other luggage, but everything arrived safely inside on both trips! 

I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to attend BreyerWest! There was a small amount of people showing in performance, but the competition and judging was amazing, and I had a lot of fun! Learning new things in the workshops was great, and I got to meet and talk to people that I had only known through Facebook. 

I also got to meet Olive, and we all know that real horses are always a highlight of a trip!

My Mom, sister, and I also visited Dinosaur Ridge, Red Rocks Amphitheater, Rocky Mountain National Park, Buffalo Bill's Museum and Grave, etc. It was amazing to see such beautiful views while spending time with family, and it was all made possible by traveling to a model horse event!