The Trail of Painted Ponies 6015078 Tis The Season Figurine 7.3″

The Thunderbird is a dominant icon in Native American Indian culture and art, both highly respected and feared because these magical creatures could be a force for both good and evil. Their flapping wings brought rain and storms, which were good for crops, but the lightning shooting from their eyes could also cause destructive winds, flooding and fires. Throughout history, depictions of the Thunderbird have appeared on totem poles, pictographs, jewelry, carvings… and now, on a Painted Pony.

There have been a number of powerful tributes to the tragedy of 9/11, among them the commemorative public art installation known as the Tribute of Lights: a pair of giant beams of light, installed at Ground Zero, that mimicked the position and shape of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center as they illuminated the night sky over Manhattan. With this image in mind, I conceived of a Painted Pony that utilized the same form that The Trail created for a previous tribute to 9/11 titled "Unconquered," which posed a white stallion triumphantly atop rubble intended to represent the collapsed Twin Towers, with an American flag behind it. But instead of a white horse, this piece would feature a faceted blue horse. Blue because the lights in the Tribute of Lights were blue. Faceted to represent the 43,600 windows that were part of the Twin Towers, as well as the venues on the top floors of the North Tower which were called Windows on the World. The title - "Wild Blue" - borrows the name of a restaurant in the North Tower that was destroyed.