Dala Daze

There's a horse-shaped object (HSO) out there somewhere with my name on it, but I haven't found it yet.

For many years now, I've wanted to possess an authentic Swedish Dala horse.

Image courtesy of theswedishwoodenhorse.com

Dala horses are simple, wood-carved horse shapes traditionally painted a solid colour (red and white are the most popular colours) and then bedecked with a fanciful painted saddle and breastcollar (called a kurbit) and various floral and graphic designs.

The Dala horse is as much of a Swedish icon as IKEA and ABBA (Swedes seem to like "shouting" at people with their all-caps brand names).  Originally created as homemade children's toys, the Dala horse really caught the attention of the international marketplace at the Paris Exhibition of 1937.  Their popularity led to the mass production of Dalas, and they can now be found worldwide, particularly in shops dedicated to Scandinavian arts and handicrafts.

I love this image of a re-imagined Dala horse on a building in New York City.  Artwork by Shai Dahan, photo by Kelevyam, image courtesy of Wikipedia.com

Dala horses now come in a bewildering variety of sizes and decorations.  Some of the very best can be linked back to known artists, and many Dala collectors devote themselves to buying and showcasing a single artist's works.  Almost everything you ever wanted to know about Dalas can be found at this excellent website: http://www.dalahorse.com/.

Over the years I've had many opportunities to buy an authentic Dala horse, but I have not yet found the one that really "speaks" to me.  Even though I'm only looking for a small Dala horse, it turns out that authentic ones can be comparatively expensive, and the larger Dala horses or those from famous artists can run into hundreds of dollars.

The main thing that has kept me from acquiring an authentic Dala horse, though, is my own indecisiveness.  Faced with such a variety of colours and decorations, I could never seem to decide which horse I wanted to bring home.  As a result, I am still authentically Dala-less.

I do, however, have two pseudo-Dalas to serve as place holders for the real thing.  One I acquired years ago -- I think it was in a gift shop in North Dakota, but it might just as easily have been during one of my city's own Folklorama festivals -- a celebration of all the different cultures in our city held every year in August.  Anyway, my pseudo-Dala is a blank, wood-carved horse very much in the Dala tradition, except for the fact that he's been sculpted into the shape of a Norwegian Fjord.  I find him totally charming and hope to eventually get a Dala the same size so I can display them as a pair.

The second pseudo-Dala was purchased more recently after a particularly frustrating session of online shopping during which I still failed to find the Dala that was meant for me.  Although I could not find the right Dala, I did find a remarkably cheap one.  Or perhaps not so remarkable, since it's not a true Dala at all but a Made in China copy of a Dala horse.

I knew what it was going in, but it was so cheap I could not resist, and I thought it would do to satisfy my cravings, at least for a while.  Tinier than my Dala-like Fjord, it is a pretty cute little HSO, but definitely not as well-painted as any of the true Dalas I've ever seen.

And so the search continues.  Someday I'll find "my" Dala horse.  Until then, there's the thrill of the chase.