Today the Farningham Hobby Horse Project was to have been a presence at the Ripley Arts Centre. We arrived, unloaded the cars, set them up around the lovely sensory garden in the manner of a sculpture park – something we hadn’t tried before – and the heavens opened. We were drenched, they were soaked and the paper and feathers and the PVA and the sequins and the ribbons so lovingly put on by their makers hung damp and dripping. We voted to bring them home and dry them off. The rest of the afternoon was spent drying everything so we can be on the road again first thing tomorrow for the Ramsgate Squall – on the coastal path – weather permitting.
This project is hard work, requiring two cars, a team of at least four, crowbars, electric drill, generator and endless patience. Somehow in the excitement of starting it all we chose to overlook the sheer repetitive nature of the endless e-mails and phone calls to set up each location, and in the loading and unloading, storing and repairing of 120 hobby horses.
Soon we will have to start looking for indoor venues, but first we have to work out how to stand them up. The favoured solution is some form of wooden ‘log’ each one taking ten horses. Then we can be flexible as to venue and space as they can be in a line, a square, in lines… now just how to make ten of these cheaply…………..
