This page details information about the pony I created for Tucson's Ponies del Pueblo project through proposal, construction, and display phases. The pony was auctioned to benefit Stray Theatre Productions. A view of the diorama inside the pony can be seen through one of five peepholes. The ranch is a scale model of the San Rafael Ranch in southern Arizona.

Proposal
A tiny world inhabited by toy horses, cattle, and roping cowboys… Rolling hills in micro-scale, with a miniature ranch house, surrounded by a barbed-wire fence made of carved twigs and thread. Surprises to find as you look closer: Inside the windows of the house appear faces of the residents. Cows wear brands. A cow-dog rounds up a straying calf. I imagined a world that would recall the history of ranching in southern Arizona, and reward the viewer for lingering and taking a closer look. …but how to build such a creation on a full-size pony, so that it could survive 6 months of public display? I remembered large, sugar Easter-eggs from my childhood, filled with marzipan scenes: My miniature world would live inside the pony, protected from the outside world by its fiberglass shell. People could peer in through peepholes in the side of the pony, each giving a different view of the world inside. For the outside: Painted with a scene of southern Arizona ranchland... blue skies above, and yellow grasslands below, punctuated by mesquites and creosotes.

Construction
November 15, 2003: The pony was delivered in a UHaul by Lee Karpisak and Rick Jones today. It weighs around 170 pounds, although they're not sure exactly how much. The pony is on a wooden base with wheels, so we can roll it out of the truck, and into my studio fairly easily.

November 24, 2003: Rick Jones came over today and helped me cut into the pony. I used a circular saw blade with my Dremmel tool, until I burnt out the motor because the fiberglass was too hard. I switched the blade to my regular drill, and finished the job easily. The shell is about 1/8 inch thick, and the cut is very clean.

November 26, 2003: To raise the base of the diorama up closer to the peepholes, I filled the interior of the pony with foam. I wanted little foam pellets that I would be able to moosh it around easily, so I got a beanbag and emptied half the contents.

On top of the foam, I layed in a corrugated cardboard floor, which I cut by eyeballing, cutting, trying, and re-cutting. On top of the cardboard, I put in a foam-cor floor, which has a better surface for the grass flocking to adhere to.

December 02, 2003: I went to Arizona Commercial Lighting Supply to order a fiber optic light, and the wonderful salesman there convinced me to go with a much cheaper and less complicated option. I was planning on using fiberoptics because it would allow me to seal the fixture inside the pony, because the lightbulb could be housed in the pony's base, with the fiberoptic cable running up the pony's leg.
The salesman recommended that I try cable lights, like you see used to light stairs. They cost $30 rather than $300. I'm inserting a clear tube in the pony, so that the cable lights can be removed and replaced as needed.

December 12, 2003: After a couple of missteps, I finally have the bottom floor of the ranch house built. The house has 44 columns supporting the balcony above it, and I initially tried to use a 1/4" basswood for them. After attempting to paint them and draw little white lines for the brick grout, I gave up and switched to brick-patterned paper that I bought at the dollhouse store. It was bright red and white, so I painted it with a wash of dirty grey-brown paint to tone it down a bit. I had wrapped around half of the pillars when I went town to see the ranch on Saturday, and discovered that the width was way out of scale. So... I started over with 1/8" wood, and finally finished gluing paper on them.

Then came gluing them to the base, which was also a challenge: the little tiny tops of the columns aren't big enough to get a nice, flat surface to glue to the base, so they were all wobbling around while the glue was drying. The wood on top has an uneven color, but only the outside 1/2" will show once the top floor is assembled, so it shouldn't be a problem.

January 2, 2003: I had never made a wood model before, and working with the material was frustrating. It is much less forgiving than cardboard, harder to glue, and I sliced up my finger in the process. I was working from a scale floor plan of the house from a history of the house published by the Arizona Historical Society, and a few photos of the house that I got off the web, since I couldn't get permission to photograph the real thing. The roof was very tricky, with all the strange angles in the roof and the dormers. I made several versions in paper and cardboard first, and then made it out of wood.

January 4, 2003: I inserted a clear, flexible plastic tube up through the hole I drilled in the pony's armpit, and slid the lights up into place. The light inside the pony is a low, golden light like you'd see right at sunset.

January 8, 2003: Wahoo-- the inside is done! The cattle and the house and a windmill and a corral and cowboys.

Another view: the thing in the upper right corner is one of the peepholes. There are five peepholes in the pony, which I placed to give different views of the scene. Two on the top give panoramas, and three in the sides show close-up views of cows or the house.

Here's a view through one of the peepholes. The lens fish-eyes the view, warping everything, and letting you see more of the landscape. There are five peepholes in the pony: Two in the top give bird's-eye-views of the whole scene, and the three in the sides give closer views of the house, corral, windmill, and cattle.

January 11, 2003: After sealing up the pony (yikes-- no turning back now) I prepared the surface for paint by washing it with acetone . I put on a couple of layers of primer that I got at an automotive finishing store.

This is the pony with the base coats: black for the mountains on the bottom, and white on the top, which will be painted with layers of translucent blue paint.

January 12, 2003: I started layering the blue over the white base coat, but the paint was too opaque, so I put another thin coat of white on, and then more blue. There are around 10 coats of paint on the pony. It looks kind-of like shiny colored pencil, with the layers showing through. It's more surface detail than I had expected, but I like the results-- the blue glows wonderfully.

January 15, 2003: Now just some finishing touches. I signed the pony on the raised hoof. I usually don't sign my work (I think it's inappropriate for most of my public projects, and it's hard to sign an installation). I signed it MK, and then found out that there's another Mary K. pony. I coated the outside with an automotive clearcoat, which I hope will keep the paint looking good.

Here's a side view. I put the light cord inside some black plastic tubing, which I glued to the side of the pony's leg. The legs are solid and structural, so running the cable inside wasn't an option.

January 17, 2003: They came and took the pony away. We got into the back of the truck without too much trouble--only a little nick to one of the ears.

Display
My pony was the only one what was inside, since it had to be plugged in. We got a good crowd even though it was separated from the rest of the heard. The pony went over well, especially with kids, who like looking through peepholes.

Dani Harman Zack, who sculpted the original pony, came to the event. She says its name is Andy Too.

My favorite quote from the day: From a kid to his family: "He ate the whole ranch."