2009 Prix de West Collectors' Bolo: Autumn Gold by Walter Matia
2009 Prix de West Collectors' Bolo: Autumn Gold by Walter Matia
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Each bolo purchase includes one braided horsehair tie; pins are standalone.
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"The artist must find the soul of his subject and then select those gestures, attitudes and stories that are most artfully descriptive of that soul," Walter T. Matia once said. And Matia has found the soul of a quail for the 2009 Prix de West Collectors' Bolo.
"I simply like everything about quail," Matia said, "from their haunts, to the traditions of hunting them, to the table. It just seemed natural to try a bolo with a quail image."
"The delicacy of the modeling of the small quail was such a change in scale from my normal work that I really struggled with it. Like just about everything else I try for the first time, what I really wish is that I could start again with a different set of answers and techniques," Matia said.
The Maryland artist's design harkens back to his earliest work when he concentrated on bird life. Today his works encompass an array of mammals from deer and dogs, to otters and eagles.
Matia didn't cast his first piece until 1980. His path started with a dual major in biology and art design at Williams College in Massachusetts followed by an extended apprenticeship in the exhibits department of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, which had a life-long impact on the artist.
Today his work graces football stadiums, corporate offices and the formal gardens of the United States President's Guest House. To complement that garden's fountain, Matia produced a set of bronze gates in 1992.
Matia, at this point a 16-year veteran of Prix de West, won the James Earle Fraser Award in 2006 with Promise of Spring. In 2007, he was named Master Wildlife Artist by The Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum.
