SIZE: LARGE 23" long X 3.5" wide X 14" tall
DETAILS:
Main Body:
Hand dyed (using green dyes) alpaca fibers needle felted over felted florists wire. The top coat has some sparkly fibers included with the alpaca for added joy.
Embellishments:
various sparkly glass beads sewn into base of floofy tail
THE STORY
HapiHors is a sort of a HORSE-like being who comes from an imaginary land that intersects with our own reality with the sole purpose of adding joy onto the globe. She is completely infused with horse energy as I am lucky enough to get to live with some. That's MuMu having a look at her early in the morning. All three equines were fascinated with this piece. They don't always act this way about the stuff I show them. This was exceptional. I almost got stampeded they were so curious!
You can read more about her land in the book "HapiLani: The Natural History of a Dream Land" written and illustrated by me, Marti McGinnis, your SongPony artist.
THIS IS A WORK OF ART and shouldn't be considered a toy, therefore is unsuitable for little kiddos. But certainly IS FOR the young at heart and those who seek to add joyful horse power to their environment.
The Background:
I believe wholeheartedly in the great good power of positive thinking. Doing so has served me well my entire life. I think focusing on what's right in my life and acknowledging what I'm grateful for day after day sets me up well to receive as much grace as possible which then frees me to share that through my upbeat art outpourings! That's where these soft sculptures come from - that exact place where positive optimism and optimism intersect with amazingly awesome materials. In this case exquisitely soft fine merino and grand champion alpaca fiber.
The Vision:
Several years ago I was invited to create a body of work to be shown at a gallery in a solo show. For an artist there can be no higher honor than the solo show. I was thrilled. I invented a dream world called HapiLani where peace, harmony and amazingly clever and varied creatures all lived and got along. Then fashioning myself as a explorer-naturalist I took notes, wrote observations, made illustrations, painted paintings, drew maps and collected live specimens to bring to the show. Eventually I turned the whole shebang into a book and blog ( http://hapilani.wordpress.com )
The Process:
First I take a gob of gorgeous plain sheep wool and sqoosh and squeeze it and stick ultra-specialized needles into it time and time and time again (I mean literally hundreds of times) until it starts sticking together in about the right shape for a body. Then I do the same thing with smaller fluffs for legs, head and so forth. I attach the bits together using my special needles and we all take a break while I run some hot water and get out the soap. Now comes the wet felting part A of the process! Squish squish squish with the hot and then cold soapy water and then squeeze out the excess and shape to dry. Now it's time to augment the shape and start adding the layers of the ultra gorgeous and exceptionally soft alpaca and fine merino wool fibers. I'm using those specialized needles again. Again almost half a million times - or something that feels close to that, lol. Then I may or I may not wet felt again - sort of depends how I want the finished creature to feel.
Finally it's time for the details - the eyes, spots, tail fluffs and so forth. This is when each being comes completely to life! My favorite part of course.
Comes wrapped in a USPS Priority Mail medium box - hence the $10 flat rate charge. On the plus side - anything else you get from my shop ships for almost nuthin'!
Every HapiLanian comes to you in voluntary suspended animation. They are taxidermied. They are in a form of hibernation.
Have any questions?
Contact the shop owner.
