Úlfar Örn, Painter of Icelandic Horses

Úlfar Örn, Icelandic artist, explains why he chooses to paint Icelandic horses and what he sees in the souls of horses conveyed through their eyes.

Freestyle to Colors of the Wind

Dressage horses and their riders perform beautiful freestyles to classical music.  Here's a girl and her Icelandic Welsh cross having fun performing in a neck ring at 2019 Equiday in Germany.  Those are some significant jumps for a smaller horse.  And like all Icelandic horses, this guy lets his friend know when he thinks the performance is done.

"The Queen of the Night" by Alexander Chee,

My current read is "The Queen of the Night" by Alexander Chee, a novel about Lilliet Berne, an American orphan, who works in the circus to escape America, become a streetwalker then maid for Empress Eugenie, transforms into a courtesan and eventual star of the Paris opera world as a falcon soprano--yes, I know a plot as fantastical and convoluted as the operas of the mid 1800s.

Here is a link explaining what is a falcon soprano.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db5hPzxVTOU

And here is the rarest of females hybrid voices--

absoluta soprana. If you can only listen to part of this, I suggest minutes 2:20 to 3:50 using Maria Callas to illustrate witchy contralto to coloratura soprano.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WstkPL61mME

I am fascinated by the cover of this book, which is a photo of the real life Virginia Oldoini (1837–1899). The beautiful Countess da Castiglione was supposedly sent to Paris to seduce Emperor Napoleon III to support Italian unification. The Countess da Castiglione was fascinated with photography. She worked with the studio of Mayer & Pierson and other photographers in the mid 1800s to produce 700 photographs of her life and visions of herself. 

"While many of the portraits record the countess’ triumphant moments in Parisian society, wearing the extravagant gowns and costumes in which she appeared at soirées and masked balls, in others she assumes roles drawn from the theater,

opera, literature, and her own imagination. Functioning as a means of self-advertisement as well as self-expression, they show the countess, by turns, as a mysterious seductress, a virginal innocent, and a charming coquette. Provided with titles of her own choosing, and often elaborately painted under her direction, these images were frequently sent to lovers and admirers as tokens of her favor. Unique in the annals of nineteenth-century photography, these works have been seen as

forerunners to the self-portrait photography of later artists such as Claude Cahun, Pierre Molinier, and Cindy Sherman. 

Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photos are from Met or Wikipedia.

Tails of Iceland--Equus entry

Here's the trailer for "Tails of Iceland," an entry in the 2019 Equus film competition.  Good luck to Art as Air, the producer of the film.

Icelandic Horses in the US -- Part II

Here is part two of the documentary of the Icelandic Horse.  Icelandic owners and trainers took a team of horses to a big horse 1990 show in Los Angeles to develop a marketing plan for the breed.  

This section records many of the rave responses of the audience to their first views of the Icelandic horse.  Some of the same barriers occur then as now.  One lady comments that the Icelandics racked better than her saddlebred and then asked if somebody could give her one.

Interestingly, this effort must have had an impact on the import of Icelandic horses to the US.  By far, the largest number of Icelandic horses and owners in the US are in California.

Page and Spine to Publish My "Why Do We Write" on Oct 11, 2019

Page and Spine will publish my essay called

"Why Do We Write" on October 11, 2019.  This is the second piece of mine that the site has selected.  Here's the first sentence: 

"Bruce  Chatwin in The Songlines visualizes that primordial moment when the First Man on the African Savannah shouts out his first words “‘I AM!” to defy the terrors of the African Savannah, which is the beginning of all songs and all stories.  "

Icelandic Horses in the US--Part I

Laxnes Horse Farm made a 1981 documentary about the re-introduction of the Icelandic horse to the US in the 1980s and early 1990s.  (Icelandics were fairly popular in the US in the late 1890s and early 1900s before basically disappearing as a breed in the US). 

Voice over is mostly Icelandic but there are some interviews in English at the end.  The actress Jennifer O'Neil delivers one of the best explanations of the appeal of the breed.  She describes the horses as "beautiful,..just make my heart laugh" and describes riding them using words like fantastic trail horse, calm, smart, spirited yet sensible.  

But then as now, it's all about marketability.  O'Neil, who was very involved in hunter jumper world, was asked if she was going to buy an Icelandic horse.  Her response was "Are you going to give me one?" 

Injury Risk for Horses Increases with Hard Footing

From Wikipedia

Researchers in France studied the association of firmness of track footing and musculoskeletal injuries on French trotters training for harness racing.   Results showed  that racing over harder surfaces resulted in significantly more injury and trauma to the horses.

"Of the 18 moderate and severe lesions, 15 were identified in horses of the hard-track group, and 10 of those were in forelimbs. Moderate to severe tendinopathy of the superficial digital flexor tendon of the forelimb developed in 3 of the 6 horses of the hard-track group but none of the horses of the soft-track group. Metatarsal condyle injuries were more frequent in horses of the hard-track group than horses of the soft-track group. Severe lesions were identified only in left limbs. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Results indicated that track surface firmness is a risk factor for musculoskeletal injuries in horses trained for harness racing."


Current FEIF rules call for a "firm" surface for the track used in breeding assessments and sports competitions for Icelandic horses.  I have heard some informal discussion on how to measure the firmness of the track but I could not find any official information as to whether FEIF plans to measure the hardness of the footing in the future to mitigate potential injury. 

Source:  "Effect of track surface firmness on the development of musculoskeletal injuries in French Trotters during four months of harness race training", American Journal of Veterinary Research, November 2017

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29076363

 

"Hark, Hark the Dogs of War Do Bark" to be published in January 2020

I am currently working on a narrative non-fiction book titled Raising Rough Riders in the White House: Theodore Roosevelt and His Sons Archie and Quentin and Their Pony Algonquin. 

While researching the death of Quentin during WW I, I discovered serio-comic maps as both art form and propaganda devices. I wondered what would happen if the characters could talk. 


"Hark, Hark the Dogs of War Do Bark" is the result.  Scarlet Leaf is publishing this satire in January 2020.

Crepe and Penn to Publish "If a Pony Penned a Poem"

The online literary journal Crepe & Penn is going to publish my poem "If a Pony Penned a Poem" at the end of October.  Of course, the poem was inspired by Blessi.  Many thanks to friends who persuaded me to attempt to write poetry and submit it for possible publication.  Blessi is getting treats today for being my muse.

 

Icelanders and Their Horses

April Anderson produced a documentary on the unique relationship between Icelanders and their horses.  Here is the trailer.  It does help if one includes the link.

Do Icelandic Horses Like Bob Dylan Songs?

What does a herd of Icelandic horses do when serenaded by Bob Dylan's song "All the Tired Horses"?  They continue to graze with two sentinels looking out because of that wild harmonica.  Fredrico Borluzzi shares footage of his tour of Iceland in 2017