Saturday, July 24, 2010

Makin' Big Horses for the Richland Park Horse Trials

I made horse heads yesterday! The heads are one of the more complicated elements of the pieces I am making specifically for my favorite event of the year, The Richland Park Horse Trials.
I'll be manning the forge and displaying my work while reveling in the beauty of over 500 acres of Michigan farmland dotted with fantastically talented horses and riders doing their thing with skill and grace.
I'm making big horses specifically for this event. They are freestanding, (around 20-21 hands!) and made from 9/16" corten roundstock. I'll display these and some of my other work as well as make some coal smoke, hammer away on a few things and tell some jokes. Last year, I even got to learn a few things from a farrier or two and loved swapping stories and tales from the world of hot metal. The event is open to the public, with a small fee for parking. Proceeds to benefit the Cheff Therapeutic Riding Center, in Augusta, Michigan. Whether you're an avid horse lover or not, you'll really enjoy your time at the event. Its quite spectacular.

Learn more about The Richland Park Horse Trials: http://www.richlandpark.com/index.html

Learn more about Eventing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eventing

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Rilke said...

Do continue to believe that with your feeling and your work you are taking part in the greatest; the more strongly you cultivate in yourself this belief, the more will reality and the world go forth from it.

Works of Art are of an infinite loneliness.

Fame is the sum of the misunderstanding that gathers about a new name.

Nothing in the world can one imagine beforehand, not the least thing. Everything is made up of so many unique particulars that cannot be foreseen.

Everyone once, once only. Just once and no more. And we also once. Never again.

Were it possible for us to see further than our knowledge reaches, perhaps we would endure our sadnesses with greater confidence than our joys. For they are moments when something new has entered into us, something unknown.

That is the principal thing: not to remain with the dream, with the intention, with the being in the mood, but always forcibly to convert it into all things.

Flow (psychology)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the positive psychology concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields.^[1]

According to Csíkszentmihályi, flow is completely focused motivation. It is a single-minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing and learning. In flow the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand. To be caught in the ennui of depression or the agitation of anxiety is to be barred from flow. The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task.^[2]

Colloquial terms for this or similar mental states include: to be on the ball, in the zone, in the groove, or keeping your head in the game.