This delightful creation by a "tile artist" who designs handmade tiles (www.elkabodetiles.com) tells a story of children racing across a magical garden on the back of a magical horse. A place where, in the artist’s words, "For a magical moment the 'real world' was not allowed to encroach." On the original Pony, the children, bugs and flowers were all formed in clay and fired for hardness before they were hand painted.

This Santa Fe folk artist is known for paintings and sculpture that blend Native American and aboriginal styles with a contemporary art sensibility. Ty has blanketed his Pony with intricate petroglyph and pictograph designs that seem to float on a rock-like background. "The initial impact is of a textual nature, but upon closer viewing, if one focuses on each design element as a vignette, as a picture all its own, there is much more for the viewer to explore."

An architect who wanted to design buildings in the Frank Lloyd Wright tradition - who wanted to work outside the lines, in other words - for many years Roger made his living as a draftsman, translating architectural design into three-dimensional illustrations. As an escape, he turned to humorous sculpture. By placing a little boy wearing a ten gallon Stetson on the back of a Pony painted to look like a Southwestern landscape and adding wheels to the base and a cord with a ball at the end, Roger has transformed his Painted Pony into a child's pull toy.

After completing her studies in art, music and fashion design in Hamburg, Germany, Ilse lived in South Africa and Spain before finding a paradise in the New Mexican village of Magdelena. There, she writes, "one is blessed with amazingly wide horizons during the day and unrivaled clear views of the stars, milky way and other galaxies at night." Adorned with gold celestial formations that sparkle with semi-precious gems, her pony epitomizes the artist's gift for creating original and enchanting artworks.

A Mohican Indian from northern Wisconsin, Bill has long been one of the most admired figures in the Native American music arena. His album “Ghost Dance” brought him Artist and Album of the Year at the 2000 Native American Music Awards. As talented a painter as he is a songwriter, Bill dug deep within his music and his art to create a spiritual memorial to the massacre at Wounded Knee. With the words to “Ghost Dance” written on the horse beside the portrait of a warrior who fought the White Man but is able to overcome bitterness with faith in a better tomorrow, Bill has created a powerful and original artwork.

Born to a family of artists and craftsmen from the Tesuque Pueblo in New Mexico, Tom (a tribal policeman) wanted to incorporate some of the traditional images that have been handed down from generation to generation, into a design that was contemporary in feeling and rich with symbolism. To do this he combined various animal abstractions with geometric patterns. The sash represents good fortune. The blanket honors the horse as a bold and strong being. The eagle is a symbol of properity. The handprint stands for the loving touch of all creation.

A gifted writer and painter, this Cherokee artist wanted her Pony to stand not only as a work of art, but an "expression of healing and support for those of need in our community." Adorned with a tribal sash made of leather, shells and beads, decorated with individual handprints of children, Mary worked overtime to complete this "vision and personal prayer" before passing to the other side in the summer of 2003.

When she was invited to paint a Pony that honored the racehorse, Janee, a children’s book illustrator, imagined four fast fillies charging down the homestretch, the winner crossing the finish line a nose ahead of the others. The artistry in her design is heightened by the contrasting colors of the horses and the silks of the jockeys set against a midnight-black background, and the determination and courage etched on the faces of the fillies.

Known as a realistic impressionist, this celebrated Mexican artist whose paintings have been exhibited internationally "wanted to deliver the ambiance of the lush vegetation, the bougainvilleas and flowers of the semi-tropical region of southeast Mexico. There you can pick flowers and enjoy plentiful vegetation the year round. The people call their land, 'Eternal Spring.'"

Born in Parral, Chihuahua, Mexico, Noel has devoted his efforts as an artist to sharing a vision of Mexico as a place "as colorful and vivid as a memory." Of his inspiration for his Pony he writes, "The nobility and spirit of the Horse is so high and sublime, it led me to take them to heavenly heights in the shape of billowing clouds."

"It was a Cherokee tradition for each family to make and hang a mask in the house for power and protection, to keep in good luck and keep out the bad," says Cherokee artist Jesse Hummingbird, whose paintings of brightly colored, geometric faces have become his signature. "The two couples represent different seasons of life - spring and fall - and are my way of inspiring people to find soulmates with whom they can discover both the strength and beauty of love."

Writes the artist, “This Pony has a patriotic theme without the usual red, white and blue, stars-and-stripes motif. What is more American than the apple? Hot dogs, baseball and APPLE pie… I rest my case.” Working primarily in watercolors and colored pencils, Penny has won a variety of national awards for her still-life paintings - thus the exquisite realism of the apples adorning her Pony’s flanks.