21”H x 18”W x 18”D

Bronze, Ed. 35 (Sold Out)

"In the days when travel was more rustic, cowboys in the West relied on a good mount to get them through the territory and to get their work done. Riding a good horse wasn’t an every day occurrence, a man had to work hard to train a good horse. There’s no taming some horses, or some men for that matter. When a really wild horse and a really wild man were paired up, sparks would fly. A cowboy had to be just as wily and wicked as the horse he tried to break to ride. Sometimes, with real rank ones, the horse never gave in to the idea of being broke, and the cowboy never gave up trying, it became an ongoing battle of wills. The two would finally settle into a working relationship built on mutual respect for each others wicked ways.

A good hand always broke his own string of horses. Back then the methods weren’t as developed - they were as uncivilized as the country they roamed. Each cowboy had his own tools and his own ways; a blindfold or scotch hobble and high cantled, high shouldered saddle with plenty of leather to grab when no one was looking. Timing was of the essence. At dawn a colt had a lasso thrown around its neck for the first time, and by dusk a saddle on its back.

The rank and wild range bred colts were virtually untouched until the whole remuda was rounded up in the spring. They were wild in the eye and loved to give a cowboy a go. To ride a real rough one, a cowboy had to be just as tough and mean as the horse. If a horse tried to take a chunk outta him, well then he had to take a chunk right back.
It was a tough job, smoothing out a string, a cowboy had to buckle down to gettin’ a horse broke and gettin’ it done quick. There was no time for frills, especially when two really wicked ones chanced to meet.

“The Wicked Ones”

Greg began working on the original clay model in the fall of 1998. While sculpting in the studio of a friend he was struck by lightening with his hands poised above the piece. He was working on a old coal/wood burning stove and sitting on an antique shoe repair stand from the days of Billy the Kid. The lightening hit the stove pipe protruding from the roof, traveled down like blue fingers, then arched off the stove and hit him directly in his left palm. Fortunately, there was no serious or permanent damage. Greg’s greatest fear of naturally occurring phenomenon has always been of being struck by lightening, he would never even get out to get stock gates in a storm. This jolt seemed more like a special gift, in a sense, it touched him with an energy not many people live to tell about while he was in the midst of his second work of art. That jolt certainly seemed to give “The Wicked Ones”, aka “When Lightening Strikes”, an extra energy not easily defined.