Seeing Brumbies Run among the trees at Warroo is a vision fulfilled for sculptor Brett Garling. "I never thought, realistically, I'd ever see them in a setting like this," he said at the official opening of the Sculpture Down the Lachlan trail on Saturday. He'd crafted the marquette of the four galloping, frolicking horses, and the tiny model was sitting on a shelf when Forbes Arts Society visited to look at Family Matters in progress. Brumbies Run caught their eye as ideal for the sculpture trail, and the call was made to commission Garling to create the piece for Warroo. The brumbies Garling has formed aren't just life-size, they're life-like, their movement captured by an artist who's had horses all his life and worked first to understand their anatomy to create the armateur that is the foundation of the work. "There’s more time building the armatures than there is sculpting with clay," Garling said. "Sculpting, because I probably know horses pretty well having horses all my life, that’s the fun and easy part." He explained he has to visualise the work - and in this case it followed from his Man From Snowy River at Coryong. "I visualize in my head so I can place it somewhere and turn it around 360 degrees, and once I can do that I’m off and running," he said. "It’s getting the bone structure, the movement right and the mannerisms of a horse right, you’ve really got to know your animal to get all those mannerisms and little gestures right. "This is the perfect landscape, especially in amongst the trees - from a distance you’re seeing them running through the trees, it’s ideal." Garling has a number of works in Forbes including Family Matters at the Wiradjuri Dreaming Centre. "Forbes has been very kind to me, I’m very very honoured," he said at Saturday's official opening of the trail as a whole. "This is a world class sculpture trail and that’s not something to be said lightly. "It’s of a standard that’s worthy of recognition and I’m just super thankful – I’ve got to pinch myself sometimes."
