About Honey Hill
The mare, the myth, the legend.
Honey is a 2004 model APHA mare. We met as teenagers — her mentally, me actually (and mentally)— a 4 year old and a 16 year old who had no business knowing each other. When I first met Honey it was on a Friday afternoon in mid-October. I remember the first time I saw her. She was kept in a pen at the end of the property and barely visible behind other horses eager to see if the new visitors were bringing food. But she stood out.
Over the next year and change, we attempted to learn with each other. Honey had only had a few rides on her when we bought her, and though she may have dumped the woman showing us, she had a good head on her. Unfortunately, a good head and a hot-headed teenager is not a great mix, and with a stagnated training schedule for the both of us, injuries (mine) happened.
Unable to ride and 18 without an income, I had no way of taking over her payments and as I was not able to ride her due to location limitations, she was sold to my trainer. I mourned, but knew she would be taken care of. The next year, Honey was listed for sale. I still had no money. I was to talk to my father to see if he would loan me the money, but a miscommunication between my former trainer and I led Honey to being donated to the National Center for Equine Facilitated Therapy. I felt better about this, despite being heartbroken. I was assured by the program director that she would have a home for life and would be taken very good care of.
By this point I was working at a ranch in rural Northern California, surrounded by mountains, trees, and the Mendocino National Forest. We had mares and foals, a very sweet stallion, and I learned all about equine husbandry, training, and selling horses. One part of my compensation for this job was board for a horse, and with a stallion handy, I reached out to enquire if I might be able to breed lease Honey. It was denied, obviously, but I wasn’t put out. A couple of months later while scrolling a horse sale website, my boss frowned and said “isn’t this your mare?”
Sure enough it was. So I immediately called my father, asked for a loan, and bought Honey back. From there we’ve been inseparable. For the last 10+ years, Honey has been my constant. She makes my good days better and my bad days bearable. So it’s no surprise that so much of my life has been influenced by her.
Honey Hill Studio is the culmination of a little girl’s horse collection and her penchant to doodle horses everywhere. In the days of online horse SIM games, I was able to make game money by creating pixelated greyscale user tags. I was able to paint these in Photoshop, the greyscale making it easy to adjust the color for any horse.
I picked up digital sculpting after seeing the amazing things that other digital artists have been making. With much guidance and tips from the community, specifically Jake Heaps of Break the Mold Studios, I was able to sculpt and print my first model: Grazie.
Though she was rough and I’ve since learned so much, this grazing mare, a portrait of Honey, is my most special piece. It is the first and only mold that my mom was able to see, and though she really wanted me to clean up the herd of decapitated Breyer Stablemates I was trying to resculpt, I’d like to think she thought it was pretty cool. At least I do know she thought it was cool and was glad I had something that made me feel better.
Since her passing, sculpting has been something that keeps me going. It allows me to decompress and work on being creative instead of self destructive. I hope that as the years go by, my skills will improve and there will be a time I can help others the way I have been helped.
Brianna likes to think of herself as an old lady, but she’s not that old. More than anything she is sassy and driven to work harder by spite and time to sit with her home pack of animals: Delilah and Samson, her senior chihuahuas, Teddy, the roadside special Terrier, and her newest regret: Morrigan, the black devil kitten.