Skilled grandfather crafts gifts that rock
Published: November 3, 2005
A redwood heart hidden inside a handmade rocking horse will tell future generations whose loving hands created the family treasure.
Inscribed in the heart is the name of James Taylor’s 2-year-old granddaughter, Lindsay Taylor. The heart also tells who made the rocking horse — Papa Taylor.
Lindsay’s treasure is the second and last rocking horse Taylor has made for his grandchildren. The first horse was given a year ago to his first grandchild, Taylor Albrecht, when he was 2. Albrecht often rides on his horse singing songs, said his mother, Lisa Albrecht.
“It’s very pretty,” Taylor Albrecht said.
Working with wood is one of Taylor’s many hobbies, and when he saw a wooden rocking horse at a Mesquite Festival in Fredricksburg, he was determined to make one himself, Taylor said.
“I said, ‘No, way,’” said his wife, Darlene.
Although she might have doubted the project, she borrowed a book about rocking horses from a friend at a Bay City school where she was working, she said. The book said plans to build a rocking horse were available on the Internet. Taylor ordered the plans from a man in England, Taylor said.
Taylor has made many decoyed wooden boxes and decorative segmented bowls in his lifetime. He also built cabinets and a media station for his home, but Taylor had never taken on a project that required detail on such large of scale as the horse, he said.
It took him about 250 hours to complete one horse, Taylor said.
While the plans instructed Taylor on how to piece the blocks of wood together to create a rocking horse, it didn’t give instructions on how to sculpt a horse’s head, he said. He bought a book about horses and studied it. Then, he went out to his shop, took out his tools and started carving.
“And it came out looking like a horse,” Taylor said with a proud smile.
Glass eyes and a horse’s mane and tail made of real horse hair completed the child’s jewel.
Atop his granddaughter’s maple wood horse, that stands on a cherry wood base, is a burgundy saddle. Underneath the saddle is a pink saddle blanket Darlene Taylor made. Lindsay Taylor’s horse was made to took more feminine than her cousin’s, which is made of mesquite and has stronger features and red horse hair, Taylor said.
Taylor Albrecht’s horse had blond hair at the beginning, but he was scared of the color. Taylor and his wife dyed the horse hair red — matching the color of Albrecht’s mother — and the boy has loved the horse ever since, Lisa Albrecht said.
James Taylor became interested in woodworking when he struggled with school, he said.
“I was more interested in how the book was made of rather than what was in the book,” he said.
It only took one shop teacher who complimented Taylor to convince him to work with his hands for the rest of his life. Taylor now works as a mechanical equipment specialist, and he’s always making something at home.
“Sometimes I look at something and it’s not enough to know how it’s made — I have to do it myself,” Taylor said.
Taylor’s attitude has launched several hobbies for he and his wife, including woodworking, quilting and making glass lamp beads.
“He’s always tinkering with something,” said Darlene Taylor, who was Taylor’s high school sweetheart. The two have been married for 38 years, she said.
The Taylors do not hesitate to donate their handmade creations to local charitable auctions. Sometimes they anonymously donate quilts, sometimes wooden pens and on other occasions they donate beaded necklaces. Even with their various gifts, most people do not know about their talents, Taylor said.
“I don’t know why he’s willing to go public now,” Darlene Taylor said.
“We do all these things for our own satisfaction,” James Taylor said.
But he is looking forward to seeing his granddaughter’s satisfaction when he delivers her horse this weekend, he said.
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