Christmas Kittens~~~

Merry Christmas, Everyone! 

Here are two of the images from the Postcard set we're selling, with the third being Maureen's Sespe Violette Belgian sketch.  Hagen-Renaker collectors will recognize the kitten on the top as the rare Designers Workshop Seated Kitten.
  

The rooster is another drawing that was sculpted into a Hagen-Renaker piece - the rare DW Banty Rooster.  They are great examples of how precisely Maureen could sculpt a 3-d piece from a small quick life-sketch.
Enjoy!

More News From Share The Love

Wow, another post so soon!

As you may know, Share The Love began with photographing, documenting and preserving the sketchbooks of Maureen Love.  Her estate has kindly given us permission to offer some prints to sell to help recoup a little of the cost for that, and we have listed a few on the Fine Art America website.  They provide a fine art high quality print-to-order service, and customers can order prints on several different mediums, sizes, framed, unframed.  There are only a few there at the moment, but we are open to looking for specific horses or animals in the sketches.  

                   Maureen Love on Fine Art America.com

We are also offering a set of 5" x 7" greeting cards and a set of postcards featuring reproductions of Maureen's sketches that we are selling directly, and can send out immediately if you need a quick Christmas gift.  We have them listed on the Model Horse Sales Pages. 

There is a set of 6 cards with 3 different drawings of horses - a Belgian draft horse, 'Lippitt Morman' Morgan & a chestnut horse in a field - glossy finish,  blank interiors, with envelopes and gift box for $21 or $25 including postage.

There is another set of 6 postcards with 3 different drawings - the Belgian draft horse, a group of kittens and a wonderful rooster - with envelopes and gift box for $12 or $16 including postage.  If you purchase both sets together it is $35 including postage. 

Thank you for keeping Share The Love going!

  

Share The Love is Ringing in The New Year

Happy Winter, everyone!

Wow, the months have flown by since our Share The Love debut at Breyerfest this year, and we have been working on preserving more molds from Maureen's estate since then.

That has taken priority this year, as the molds were in such a fragile state, and next year we can concentrate more on producing new pieces from them.  I know everyone is looking forward to more horses!

We do have a few terracotta Quail figures available, poured and decorated by me from a rescued mold.  They are each numbered and come with a COA.  Maureen's favorite birds had to be quail, and she did several different sculpts of them, this one the cutest, I think.  This particular sculpt I have never seen before, and I'm happy that fans will now be able to see it as we interpret it.

We also have a few Seagull heads, done in terracotta clay, made and glazed by me.  They are from the flying seagull sculpture, and were all we could salvage of that particular mold.  Kristina had the brilliant idea of making them into bells,  and we have a few available as bells and also as figurines.  

I'll list them on the Model Horse Sales Pages tomorrow.

We're looking forward to producing more new pieces in the new year! 

The newest photos of a Custom Glaze Silver Dapple (Taffy) Share The Love Pony are here!  He is here at the Clarion Hotel at Breyerfest to view in person.  The photos can't capture the details Kristina put into him, the tiny handbrushed detailing on the hooves and ears, deep soulful eyes!  

I love the satin glaze.  It is a wonderful compromise between the glossy that Maureen did not like and her matte stoneware glazes.  He stands about 6 1/2" tall.

We are taking written offers via private email and in person here at Breyerfest on him until this Saturday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, open to everyone.  Current bid is $375.  Credit Cards accepted.  Click on my Blog Profile for my email information and our Share The Love Facebook page for comments.

We are also taking offers via private email and here in person at Breyerfest on a Share The Love Custom Glaze Dapple Rose Gray Marranas until this Saturday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, open to everyone.  Current bid is $700.  He stands 8 1/4" tall.  Credit Cards accepted.  Click on my Blog Profile for my email information and our Share The Love Facebook page for comments.

Thanks to everyone for the overwhelming support we're getting! 

Update!  The Share The Love Test Dapple Fiery Chestnut Marranas Arabian was entered in the Denim, Diamonds 'N Breakables Live show at Breyerfest 2013 yesterday and won Reserve Champion Light Collectability in Small Production/Test !  He was beaten by a horse Maureen glazed herself!

The Share The Love Test Grade Dun Pony won Champion Collectability in the Small Production/Test Pony division!  

We are so thrilled to have gotten the overwhelming support from so many showers and collectors here, so far!

Breyerfest 2013

Share The Love is announcing a Sneak Preview of replicas based on sculptures by Maureen Love.  We will be at Breyerfest 2013 at the Clarion Hotel. 

With permission of Maureen's estate, we will have a figure that is reduced in size and is different from any of its earlier issues.
 

Collectors will have the opportunity to purchase Share The Love's combination of one of Maureen's magnificent Arabian horses with the award-winning glazing talents of Kristina Lucas Francis.

There will be tests available for viewing.  Custom glazes are for sale by offers only.  Click my profile for email to submit written offers.  Tests are not for sale.  An additional custom glaze's new photos will be posted Wednesday night.

We will have a few other Share The Love surprise pieces and more information.

"Marranas" dapple rose gray custom glaze by Kristina Lucas Francis

 "Marranas" test dapple fiery chestnut
This is not the portrait color nor markings.
He differs further from the stoneware portrait Marranas in that he is smoother and smaller in size. There is no confusing the vintage with the new.
Test by Kristina Lucas Francis

Test dun Pony

For additional detailed photos check out our Share The Love Facebook page.

Maureen's Molds

Maureen with some of her old molds

The plaster molds of Maureen's sculptures were another daunting task.  There was a mixture of very old and newer molds, and with many of Maureen's bird figures being life-size some molds were huge.  With only a few hours to sort through and choose either the sculpts that had never been seen before or any horses that still survived, they were then shipped across the country.  They were stored for 6 years until a few months ago, when I happened to read a blog post about some Hagen-Renaker mini mini horses.

Kristina Lucas Francis, an amazing commercial artist and potter who also specializes in equine art and sculptures, had posted about her research of an obscure subject on her Muddy Hoofprints blog titled Without a Leg to Stand On, involving Hagen-Renaker's mini mini horse family (barely an inch tall) sculpted by Maureen Love in the 1950s!  It was the start of an amazing set of coincidences there that finally convinced us she was the only person who could bring those old molds to life.  Maureen had been a wonderful mentor of Kristina's, would patiently look at and critique her teen-age drawings and sculptures, and had become Kristina's subject of much study and research.  She and her husband Paul Francis, who specializes in mold making and casting also, were the perfect combination of talent to handle the old fragile plaster molds and recast them for the project.

Dawn and Kristina with some of the molds

Paul Francis restoring some of the old molds

Share The Love, with the permission of the Maureen Love estate, will be creating new pieces from these old molds of Maureen Love sculptures - many which have never been seen before and some which were produced in very small numbers originally.  They will each be Limited Editions and come with Certificates of Authenticity.  It is our intention to try and do justice to Maureen's sculptures and style of decorating, but her way of using high fired stoneware clays she had dug herself and her individual detailing was of course unique to her but is our inspiration.

The Beginning of Share the Love - a Day With Maureen

Maureen Love admiring her Angels Trumpet tree

She was born in National City, California in May of 1922, and so was named Maureen May Love.  Her parents, Tom Love and Sarah Aileen Specht, I've come to know only through the charming cards Maureen made for them as a child at Easter, birthdays and the like, and the delicate drawings of them as they grew older.  They were very often shown with their pets, and Maureen certainly inherited that love of animals and nature from them.  Maureen's mother had been a china painter, and the love of painting and ceramics is another thing that Sarah may have passed along to her daughter.

Maureen's pencil sketch of her mother and dog

Maureen was compelled to draw and sculpt, although that seems such a powerful word to use in describing the gentle, quiet, humble woman that she was.   She drew as a very young child, took art classes and was the art editor in high school, won local and California state art contests, and then went on to win national competitions sponsored by Higgins and Strathmore.  She also won a 9 month scholarship to the California School of Fine Art.  As the director of that prestigious art school wrote in a 1940 letter to the director of the Fine Arts Gallery in San Diego:

     "Concerning the young lady, Miss Maureen Love, in whom you are interested: she must have exceptional ability to obtain such recognition of her work with so little training and experience.  I heartily agree with you that it would be a shame if she were not able to continue when her work gives such promise.... I will keep her case in mind for anything that we may be able to do and will be glad to personally see that her work receives full consideration."

 Maureen went on to work during WWII as a steel welder, which helped her fabricate metal legs and parts for her stoneware ceramic sculptures of birds and animals later in her life.  She sculpted animals professionally for the Hagen-Renaker Potteries in southern California for over 50 years until her passing in 2004.  She also created her own work in primarily stoneware she called Maureen Love Originals and later in life under the names Made With Love and Molds From Maureen's Garage.  She was meticulous with keeping her time on her personal artwork separate from her employer's time.  There have been several wonderful books on the Hagen-Renaker Potteries works, and another great book of Maureen Love's life and work written by Nancy Kelly for Schiffer Books.

I was fortunate to meet and spend time with Maureen during several visits over the years while helping photograph and document her art for Nancy Kelly's books.  The sculptures we could find were documented for the most part, but Maureen's drawings and sketchbooks had only been intermittently photographed.  Maureen's estate generously allowed the entirety of her sketchbooks and drawings to be photographed, inventoried and preserved - a huge task with close to 2000 drawings.

It is our hope in time to share them with her fans, so, towards this goal, Share The Love was created.

 Maureen's estate also eventually allowed access to her sculpture molds, which were believed by everyone to have been destroyed.  I was able to rescue some of them.