I Fell In Love With Pegasus

About a year ago, a little furniture store opened near me that had some pretty interesting pieces in its windows. I always meant to stop by and check it out, but you know how time flies, especially if you are a food blogger. Then around a month ago a big sign went up in the window, “Going Out Of Business” and I said to myself, Oh Wow, I’d better go there now before they’re gone.

Inside, it was pretty bare, and what furniture was left was utilitarian. But against the back wall was this astounding sculpture! It was reflecting the sunlight coming in through the glass doors and looked ethereal. I walked around and around it, marveling at the beauty and ingenuity of the inset glass pieces. I recognized Villeroy & Boch and Wedgewood china patterns. It was love at first sight. Boom. I wanted it. I needed it. I had to have it. I talked to the owner and my heart fell. Thirty eight hundred dollars. The owner said he’d consider adjusting the price. I said I had a hundred dollars. We both laughed…

Later, I called my friend, Barbara, of MyKickAssGlass, and told her she had to see this piece before the store closed. We met there on a Saturday and I brought my camera this time. Here she is standing next to it and you can see its size. She is barely five feet tall. It is so heavy that the two of us could not make it budge.

The artist’s name is Terrie Read Kvenild. She graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 1976 with a BA in Art with Honors. Her work is exhibited all over California in places like the Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and the Functional Art Gallery in Hollywood. Her three-dimensional mosaics sell on consignment at two major galleries: the I. Wolk Gallery in St. Helena and Gumps Gallery in San Francisco. Her richly colorful mosaic horses are what she calls her “bread and butter” shapes, but in her thirty years of experience she has made it all, from bugs to cacti.

You can see her public works at Margaritaville in Capitola Village and Nob Hill Shopping Complex.

Out doors, where she works with cement, wire mesh and thinset mortor, are stacks upon stacks of bowls filled with Mexican pottery bits and Chinatown finds. Every time Gumps Department store has broken china, they send it off to Terrie, who fashions it into magnificent sculptures, which you can find at Gumps. Scroll down to the middle of this post and click on the big vase. It will fill your screen with her amazing sculpture.

The Pegasus of Greek mythology was an immortal winged horse sired by Poseidon, which sprang forth from the neck of Medusa, when she was beheaded by the hero Perseus.

The goddess Athena gave the Corinthian hero, Bellerophon, a golden bridle with which he tamed Pegasus, and rode him into battle against the fire-breathing Chimera, a three-headed monster with the head of a lion, body of a goat and tail of a snake.

Later, when the hero attempted to fly to heavenly Olympus, the gods sent a gadfly to bite Pegasus, causing him to buck Bellerophon off, throwing him back down to the earth. Pegasus continued to wing his way to heaven, where he took a place in the stables of Zeus and was given the job of carrying Zeus’ thunderbolts.

Because of faithful service to Zeus, he was honored with transformation into a constellation.

The ancient Greeks held the magnificent beast Pegasus, of Greek mythology, in great reverence. Greek coins of 360 BC had Pegasus on one side and the helmet of Athena on the other side.