The horses in Boston looked strangely familiar. I seemed to have met Henry and Paint, 7 foot high giants with scrap metal sides and twig like ribs sticking from under them in a former life. But which one? It had taken me long enough to meet them in the front of Copley Plaza in the first place.
It was the winter of 99-2000. I spent all my spare time tracking down the statues listed in Marty Carlock's "A Guide to Public Art in Greater Boston" and for some reaosn couldn't seem to find the ponies where they were supposed to be. I doubted it was my eyesight, since they were so huge, but it was possible they'd been moved since the book was published. I began grilling the store owners in the Plaza. No one seemed to knw what I was talking about. Horses? The cops had some they rode around, and the National Park guys, but they were in the Gardens. They a delivery boy dished. There had been two horses out front that fit the description, but they'd been removed because they were supposedly too dangerous to leave there when a model cut her head on one during a fashion shoot. Must have been a tall gal, I thought. These critters are, after all, seven feet. But I loved the story and crossed off the pair with a green slash of highlighter. A few months later they were back, no fanfare, no explanation, grazing on the concrete. And it was then I got the uncomfortable feeling we'd met before.
A couple years later, I returned to Honolulu to visit a friend and found smaller versions of the duo outside the Contemporary Art Museum. Of course! That's where I'd met them before. And you never forget a skeletal horse. I hunted down the artist, Deborah Butterfield, on the web and found out she's a horse breeder, dressage rider and a sculptor. She developed her individual style and has spread these unmistakeable horses all over the nation. Watch for one in a public space near you!
(Photo from Contemporary Art Museum website)
7:10:47 PM 
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