Glory heads to online auction

By Holly Michels - 03/13/2008

Carved specifically for sale, “Glory” will be offered on eBay starting March 15. The Spirit of Columbia Gardens Carousel project is hopeful the hand-carved basswood palomino carousel horse will be purchased by a collector and fetch the non-profit organization thousands of dollars.

The Spirit of Columbia Gardens Carousel is putting Glory, a wooden Andalusian horse, up for auction on eBay in an effort to raise money to finish their carousel project.

“Andalusians were the horses of royalty,” said volunteer painter Nondys Mason, patting Glory’s iridescent opal and gold flank. “A lot of love went into this horse. I wanted it to be as perfect as possible.

Mason hopes Glory, with a Spanish saddle and silver trappings, will be a victory horse for the carousel, a project that started 12 years ago.

The group wants to rebuild a carousel that ran at the original Columbia Gardens, an amusement park on Butte’s East Side, erected by Copper King William Clark in the late 1800s. The first carousel burned in the 1970s and the park was dismantled in 1973 to make way for expanding mine operations.

“My generation is the last generation to remember the Columbia Gardens,” Mason said. “We want to complete this to give back to the city of Butte.” Glory’s opening bid will be $10,000. Mason said similar horses have sold from $25,000 to $30,000. Glory’s auction starts Saturday.

“Collectors mostly buy them,” she said. “There’s a huge interest across the U.S. in the renaissance of carousels.” The Spirit of Columbia Gardens Carousel project is a daunting task that needs all the money it can get, Mason said. With a 13-person board and a small pool of volunteers contributing hundreds of thousands of hours, the project is nearing completion. Twenty-seven of 33 horses are complete.

At the Spirit of Columbia Gardens workshop in the Butte Plaza Mall, 3100 Harrison Ave., six horses lie in various stages of construction. Paffen, a horse being carved by an out-of-state man, is in hibernation until summer. Irish, another horse, is on the fast track so she’ll be completed for a family reunion in July.

All of the horses except Glory are sponsored by individuals, groups and families for $5,000 a head. For that, they get control of the design and name of the horse.

The mares and mustangs start as massive blocks of semi-soft basswood. A single carver tackles each steed, spending about 1,000 hours turning the raw material into a recognizable horse. The final product is assembled using pegs and putty, not nails and screws. All the carving, sanding and painting is done by hand without the aid of sanders, saws or airbrushes.

After the carver’s job is done, Mason takes over. A retired registered nurse with experience painting landscapes and portraits, she spends about 250 hours putting the finishing touches on each horse. Each gets five coats of primer before Mason starts with base colors.

“Sometimes the sponsors specify their color choices, but sometimes they don’t,” she said. “That’s when I really have fun because I can use my artistic side.” Mason said she feels attached to each of the 27 horses she’s painted. But some like Hope, a soft pearl-colored mare, hold a special place in her heart.

“I love this little lady,” she said. “Her sponsors wanted this horse pearlized. See how delicate she is?” The Spirit of Columbia Gardens needs to sell Glory because the project can’t receive funding through grants and other sources, Mason said. That’s because the carousel doesn’t have a permanent home yet.

“Those sources require you to have a location, and we don’t,” she said.

The group plans to place the attraction at the base of the proposed Lady of the Rockies Tram, but that endeavor is held up in the Montana Supreme Court over a road dispute.

Our Lady of the Rockies wants to use State Street to ferry tourists to a proposed tram, which will take them to the statue of the Virgin Mary, atop the East Ridge, but property owners along the road contend it is private.

“It’s so frustrating because two years ago we wanted to pour the foundation for our building,” Mason said.

Nondys said the group of volunteers supporting the carousel is still working in full force, but time is taking its toll. Three carvers have died, and others are aging.

“We have a lot of things done that people don’t really have a clue about because we don’t have a place to put them,” she said. “People say the best kept secret in Butte is our carousel project. We want to let people know we’re still working and still here.” Nondys estimates it would take 18 months to get the carousel up and running once the site dilemma is resolved. She thinks the finished product will be a tourism draw.

“It’s not only a carousel, it’s a multi-use attraction,” she said. “It would bring a great deal of tourism to our town.” Marko Lucich, executive director of the Butte-Silver Bow Chamber of Commerce, said a finished carousel would attract thousands of people a year.

“Once it’s done, I see it being more successful than (the carousel) in Missoula,” he said. “It will bring people here to shop, to eat, to enjoy our city. The carousel would be an amazing asset.” Reporter Holly Michels may be reached via e-mail at holly.michels@lee.net.