This is my Clydesdale Madonna “Daisy” with her one week old, still over at the knees, filly “Rosie”. It is the second in my Equine Madonna Series. Daisy started as a demonstration piece during the first Beginning Sculpture I taught. She was built on the simplest armature, a ¼” pipe attached to a tee inside the barrel of the horse with twisted aluminum wire into head and legs to form the skeleton. The photo in the clay also shows a simple way to support legs that don’t reach down to the wood base. Building Rosie without an external armature was also the ideal way to demonstrate that a twisted wire skeleton is sufficient for small pieces.

I have been in awe of the breed since I was a little girl thrilled to be able to pet the Budweiser Clydesdales on one of their visits to San Francisco. I still have an old black and white snapshot taken by my mother of me reaching way up to reach that lovely soft nose. Imagine my excitement when my husband was instrumental in bringing the health care for the Budweiser Clydesdales to the University of Tennessee while he was Dean of the Veterinary College. This bronze is a tribute to all the beautiful Budweiser mares I was introduced to by Barry Farrell, Budweiser’s Herdsman as well as the Castagnosso Clydesdales of Michigan.

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