Ok, now for the REALLY special bit! As you know my visit to the BOYCC show was made possible by Joanie Berkwitz; china casting and custom glazing artist-extraordinaire. Joanie opened her home to me and ensured I got the best experience possible throughout the BOYCC event and beyond, into the three extra days I spent with her and her family.
Thank you Joanie, your kindness and support has given me an experience I will treasure forever.
BOYCC was such an amazing experience, it was easy to see how it had taken months (even years!) of preparation and planning!
BOYCC, for me, began on 18th May, the day before the Convention was due to begin, at Joanie’s house. As people arrived for the event the following day they all piled round to Joanie’s house and we made a start on preparations, getting the Pour Horse gazebo up in the garden, organising tables, chairs and of course, those Goodie Bags!
There were 50 Goodie Bags, and with each new person through the door it seemed, there was a new treat to add to the bags! Amy Peck, shown on the left here took control and got everything organised, and the rest of us chipped in to get all the lovely nik-naks into the bags. As it turned out, we ended up filling 50 new bags (just plastic bags) with all the extra goodies that turned up over the course of the two days!
On the evening before the show, Sue Stewart, Karen Gerhardt, Donna Chaney, Amy Peck and me all went out for dinner at a place called BJ’s. We were intrigued to see that on the menu, each dish had the calorie content labelled – we debated on whether this was a good idea, decided it was and most of us opted for one of the low-calorie dishes, which as it turned out was very filling. After the angelic main, we rewarded ourselves with a devilish dessert consisting of three cookies served in the cake tins they were cooked in, still piping hot and gooey, served with three dollops of ice-cream. We chose one double-chocolatey one, one macadamia and white chocolate (heaven in a dish!!) and one peanut butter one which I didn’t expect to like, but very much did!
After dinner we headed back to Joanie’s house, she had gone for dinner with another group so we spent a little time looking at her amazing doll’s house – you can ready more about it on Joanie’s blog here (you’ll need to scroll down a bit): http://yashasbonsaiblog.blogspot.com/
I’d seen Joanie’s doll’s house evolve through her blog, but I’d not seen the incredible loft-studio – Addi had even made Joanie a miniature model-horse-sculpture-in-the-works for it!
Click on this pic to zoom in, the level of detail in here is just mind-blowing!
Ok, back to BOYCC! The morning of the 19th – the show kicked off! Everyone piled round to Joanie’s house for the first workshop – Joanie’s Custom Glazing Workshop.
In the photo below, from the left: Elli Heritage-Mench is shown admiring some Maureen Love models that were for sale, custom glazed by Maureen’s long-standing friend, who’s name escapes me right now (if you know could you pop a comment below, I’m sorry for forgetting), Marge Para is next, she was a real trooper throughout the show as she was suffering with a poorly leg, but she stuck it out through the whole event and had some very cool custom glazed dog models including some uber-cute English Bull Terrier pins! Then we have Cynthia Perry, who is one of the loveliest, most genuine people I think I’ve ever met, then the lady in the green top is Kathy Williams, another happy, chirpy lady. I’ll list the other people late on, I’m sure most will be covered by my other photos (I have so many to share!).
So, the day’s workshop involved masking off a bisque bone chine model, Donna Chaney had sent over some bisques of her Cantering Welsh Pony and also the gorgeous Standing Friesian Mare, which is a real favourite of mine however, Joanie had offered to let me use a bisque Earthenware copy of my Little One model, so I couldn’t refuse that offer! The bisque felt so delicate and weighed almost nothing, it was a pure, pure white and I was so proud to see my little baby all clinky, this was the first Earthenware copy I had ever seen and I have to admit I got a little lump in my throat.
Ok, moving on! Here is my model post-masking, using a blue masking tape and tinfoil. I’ve always wanted to see Little One in a baby black, snow-cap/blanket appaloosa (ignore my ignorance if you please). The hooves needed to be masked off to allow Joanie to hold the piece during painting as the dry glaze is very easily rubbed off when touched. The initial masking was only rough as, once sprayed, the idea was to use rubber eraser pencils and scalpels to expand the white markings, scritching in the details.
Here is (a young, at only 15 I think) Emily Dunnan’s model, after Joanie had added the glaze (Emily chose a lovely Dun…pinto? Not sure, but it was a great choice of colour and of course, Joanie applied it perfectly!). Emily then worked on rounding off the markings and adding detail and hand painting some parts, you can see the result a bit later on…
It was a really lovely, relaxed day (though not for Joanie and Addi slaving over getting the models glazed), here you can see Sue Sifton (left), Kim Bjorgo(-Thorne?) and on the right, Katie Younger-Gehrt fastidiously working on those dapples!
Katy spent a great deal of time on her model, it was a dappled grey and involved two layers of glaze.
And here you can see where all that work went! Even before firing, this model looks amazing!
Here is Addi (in green, you can also tell by her name badge) sharing a few tips with some of the ladies, I think that is Macy Lindsay on the left, then Kathy in green and on the right, Susan Candalaria.
The dogs were omnipresent, of course! Here is Yasha doing a spot of posing for the camera.
After Joanie’s workshop everybody gradually made their way over to the hotel; the Lake San Marcos Hotel and Resort. Well, almost everyone, Joanie stayed back to make a start on firing those models.
Sadly, on the Monday prior to the show, model horse collector and real-horse breeder Karen Grimm passed away. Karen was a huge model horse collector and had a collection of models that numbered in the thousands including some rare and unique models, her collection was admired by many as was she. Karen bred Appaloosa horses and her real horses were renowned the world over, winning many top awards. Karen had been battling with cancer for a while, but after a fall at home she passed away. I didn’t know Karen but many of the people who attended BOYCC did. Joanie was deeply saddened at Karen’s passing away and I have enormous admiration for the way she trooped on, and having lost a crucial day to prepare for BOYCC, she soldiered on through the evenings while we socialised, to ensure that the BOYCC awards (pictured below) and the models created during her workshop were all ready to go.
As a tribute to Karen, each of those attending the show wore her name-tag for a while and a book of remembrance was available throughout the show for people to write their messages for her husband, and a board was put up for people to add little notes of their memories of Karen.
Karen’s collection can be seen on her website here – be warned though, if you enter this website you need at least an hour or so, a comfy seat and a good cuppa, her collection is just amazing! Be sure to check out her real horses too,
So, whilst Joanie was slaving back in her studio, the rest of us kicked back and relaxed. Elli and her husband, Gunner played host and hostess and provided a constant supply of cocktails including the deceptively potent Mai-Tai (I had one of those!), the scrumptious Strawberry Daiquiri (I had one of those too!) and Amaretto (I had one of those too…. can’t remember much after that to be honest!).
I have to admit I was awestruck with Elli’s fantastic hair. As someone who has spent a lifetime trying to get her hair to grow, Elli’s 2ft+ ponytail had me mesmerised! Gunner was bartender extraordinaire, and every cocktail (alcoholic or non-alcohotic – perhaps I should have tried more of the latter!) was adorned with fruit sizzlers and cocktail umbrellas!
Earlier in the day, whilst at Joanie’s house, she had shown us a pot she has where she keeps all the failed castings. While we were all getting very excited about her “waste”, we made a gruesome little discovery of a little lizard that had once fallen in their. In will all that bisque it was perfectly preserved and was quickly adopted by Jacqui Fernandez, who quickly made him into a little mascot. Here he is enjoying a little shade under a cocktail umbrella.
Also present during the fun of the evening were a couple of models Addi brought along to help her raise some money for a house she’s buying soon. For a blissful …6.5 seconds, I was the high bidder on this awesome little Callahan model she custom glazed, but I was quickly outbid by Barb Ness.
As you can see (click on the pic to zoom) Melly Gaulding was having nobody get in her way of snagging the beautiful little Vixen and Imp set!
Next morning, on Friday 20th May (ugh, I’m soooo far behind!!), was day two of the Workshops. Today was the day for Karen Gerhard’s Experiencing China Painting workshop, which ran alongside Joanie’s Restoration Part 1 workshop. I would have loved to attend both, but I chose to go with Karen’s china painting one.
If you look closely at the photo below, you might see what it is that Karen has there in her hands. It is a fully custom glazed copy of her Optime sculpture, that she is liberally applying some orange and blue glazes to. The glaze is a simple glucose mix so washes off, but still, seeing a gorgeous model like that being coated in bright blue glaze was a little mind-bending!
Here is my effort – we were given a lovely little set of glucose (not sure that’s correct? A thick, clear liquid) and some pigments by Karen, presented in a neat little box along with a little china pin for us to glaze. This is my attempt, I struggled very much with the brush-strokes, so decided to go with the flow and make mine a hairy little pony. I never claimed to be any good at painting….
The others had much better ideas, I’m not sure who these were done by, but the one on the left is going to be a multi-layered creations (the best way to work with these over-glazes), and the two darker ones were created by people much more confident in this that I was!
The pins were left with Karen who took them to Joanie’s house to fire for us, and were presented back to us later in the event.
Whilst I was happily glazing my pin, Donna Chaney very kindly offered to take a model that had taken a tumble while I was packing, and restore it for me during Joanie’s Restoration Workshop. Certainly an offer I couldn't refuse and Donna fixed my little Pegacorn up for me wonderfully! Thank you Donna!
Here is a quick panorama shot of the view from the rooms we had for the Workshops and show, it was stunning and I spent a good while gazing out at the scenery and wildlife during the event.
Next up, after a scrummy lunch (of which there were many!), was my workshop – Sculpting a Simple Medallion, this was held alongside Pauline Entin and Kathy Williams’ European Chinas talk. I heard lots of positive things about the European Chinas talk, I wish I could have attended all the workshops!
I didn’t have a huge amount of preparation for my Workshop unlike some of the others, but I did have to chop up several blocks of clay. The brown clay was relatively soft, but the green clay was very hard and I’m still amazed I managed to get it all cut up while keeping all my fingers on!
I didn’t get any photos from my workshop (too busy talking, haha!) but I think it went ok. The idea was to create a medallion that could be cast in Earthenware china, so we had to take many things into consideration, for instance you can have much fewer undercuts when casting with plaster molds.
The medallions started in my workshop were then left with each participant to work on during the event. I didn’t expect there would be much time for the ladies to work on them, but they set up a little area at the end of the room and were working feverously away on their medallions throughout, I was so impressed!
The final set of Workshops for the day were: Addi’s Basic Greenware Casting and Cleaning, Mel Miller’s Digital Photography and Photo Showing and Joanie’s Restoration Part 2.
I chose to go with Addi’s Greenware workshop, and it was wonderful, gooey messy fun!
First up, we poured the slip into the plaster molds:
We had to wait for the level to drop, then top it up, some people had to do this twice.
Then, after 5 minutes, we drained out the liquid slip leaving a shell of soft clay in the mold. We then left these for a little while to drain the last of the liquid out and to allow time for the plaster to absorb the moisture from the slip.
Here is my model – it was pot-luck as to which mold you had, and I got this little guy, I think he’s called Collier. This mold comes from a 2-part mold which mean when demolded, there is no definition between the legs, just a flat plane so that the mold parts come away ok. I got to work cleaning seams and adding this detail back in, although I did still miss one part out – mine was a genderless horse!
I also added a little bit of detail on his chest
Cynthia Perry was my workshop-neighbour and the mold she got to play with was a partial casting of the snorty SMB Shetland Otto. She improvised and made this beautiful miniature lamp – perhaps Joanie could use this in her doll’s house…?
Sadly, we weren’t able to keep our models, and in the most heart-breaking part of the event, we had to put them back into the slip bucket to be recycled into new models. This reminds me of that scene at the end of Terminator 2!
Throughout the event there were no end of goodies on show, and one thing that caught my eye was this pot, well, there were actually two of them. I was intrigued by the blue glazing that had an amazing leather-type pattern to it.
I was both saddened and made happy when I opened the lid to see that these two beautiful little pots had been donated to the show by Karen Grimm.
At the end of day two, we all headed back to enjoy an evening doing whatever we liked. This photo says it all really – our Bungalow was definitely the proverbial kitchen-at-the-party!
More treats were on offer this evening, this time creations by Marge Para. This little Jitterbug was beautiful
and this Otto was stunning too!
Sadly I couldn’t offer on these two, as I’d already been shopping… I’d been to see Donna!
I’d been saving up in anticipation of BOYCC as I knew there would be many whiny things on offer, but as an Animal Artistry collector I also knew that Donna would bring something exceptional! She had so many beautiful models that I was quite torn on what to choose, but I finally decided on these two – this is a Show Special model on the Morgan mold, Donna has claybody customised each with a beautiful little rosette with “BOYCC” in tiny letters along the rosette tails. It was dark when I got these, so please excuse the awful photos (and fingerprints all over little Boisy [that’s his show name]!), he’s an Earthenware AAE model.
And this is Siam, she’s the Standing Friesian Mare model which I love so much, with two little feline additions. I was chuffed to get this model as I didn’t get one during Joanie’s Workshop (I would have chosen this model had she not tempted me with the Little One 
That’s it for this post, I thought I could do BOYCC in three, but it’s going to be a four-blog story!
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