Thursday Art Date With Rain -- "Farm Life"

I did not grow up on a farm but my father did in the 1920s and 1930s, so I'm featuring his carving artwork today for Rain Frances' art prompt. When my Dad retired in the 1990s, he started carving scale-model replicas of the heavy horse teams and grain wagons he knew so well from his childhood on a Manitoba prairie farm. This is the set he carved for me, complete with a little collie dog as I had requested.

The grain wagon is a fully moveable, working replica made of balsa wood and pine. A friend with a home workshop let him borrow his lathe to shape the wheels. Otherwise, it is all hand cut, hand carved and assembled. A true piece of Canadiana folk art!

The grain box sits securely on the moveable axel system attached to the yoke tree to which the horses are harnessed.

The horses' harnesses are made of leather/vinyl with felt padding and chain/metal attachments. I always loved the tiny set of spread rings he made for each horse! The horses themselves are carved from pine.

 

In all the other team-and-wagon sets he made, the horses and grain wagon were fully painted in realistic colours, like this separate draft horse which my Dad carved and painted for me when he was first starting to carve --

But I requested that my team-and-wagon set be stained, not painted, for a bit more of an "artier" look. I've always loved the effect! And my set therefore looks different from everyone else's as well.

Artistic talent ran in my father's family. Life circumstances back in those days prevented access to art lessons or an art career, but my Dad definitely had undeniable talent. He expressed it the most in his carpentry work and in this later hobby of carving.

[Photos © Debra She Who Seeks, March 2022]