MERCER, Pa. – Brett Schroyer leans over his work bench, carving the ear of a Victorian rocking horse he crafts inside his shop.
“When I start, I always start with the ears, and so I’ll just kind of lay out a rough idea,” he said. “I always tell people there’s a roadmap when you do them for as long as I’ve done them.”
Schroyer, owner of Greenfield Woodworks, 1967 Mercer West Middlesex Road, started carving rocking horses about 25 years ago. His father, Frank Schroyer, is a retired art teacher, so Schroyer grew up surrounded by art. He started painting with dreams of being the next Norman Rockwell but moved on to woodworking, initially with his dad.
“He and I have a passion for the carousel horses,” Schroyer said. “He picked up a book years ago – this is probably the late 80s, early 90s – on carousel horses. And we thought, ‘Let’s do a carousel horse.’”
Constructing one isn’t what most people think.
“People think a carousel horse is just a big block of wood, and they make a horse. They don’t,” he said.
Instead, each horse consists of about 30 pieces, carved and then assembled.
To learn more about the craft, Schroyer took a course at a Mansfield company that was one of the country’s last manufacturers of carousel horses. After the course, the company wanted to hire him, he said. Schroyer later picked up a book on old-world Victorian rocking horses and learned their construction was similar to that of carousel horses. Carving and building those, which are smaller than carousel horses, provided an avenue for Schroyer to sharpen his skills without wasting a lot of wood.
“Once I got into the history of these, I just fell in love with them,” he recalled. “That was 25 years ago, and here I am still doing it.”
Rocking horses date to the middle ages and were used to help knights perfect their swordsmanship and to teach children how to ride horses.
Schroyer builds and carves horses from small to supersize on bows or gliders. The supersize stands about 60 inches. Prices range from about $2,800 for a small horse to $4,500 for a large one.
He distinguishes breeds by the position of the horse’s ears or the shape of its head and sharpened his carving skills through practice.
People find him at his website and at shows like the Shaker Woods Festival in Columbiana, Ohio, where he’s been displaying his wares for about 20 years. He also posts videos of his work on his YouTube channel.
His creations use horsehair for the tail and mane, and he orders the leather saddles, stirrups and bridle from a company in England.
Schroyer earned the 2023 Master of Craft Award from Keeneland Mercantile in Lexington, Ky. He and his work were featured that same year in Keeneland magazine. The competition recognizes products made by U.S. artisans.
“Craftsmanship means spending thousands of hours to hone your skills to create immaculately constructed and beautifully designed pieces,” a Keeneland representative said in a 2022 news release when the competition launched. “These awards are a celebration of that dedication to excellence.”
Schroyer follows the practice of old masters of the craft, tucking a note or memento into the hollow body of each horse he creates. He asks each customer if they want to write a family history to include as a note.
Schroyer doesn’t read the notes people send, so he didn’t learn until after he’d finished and sent off one of his horses that its recipient was Mick Jagger’s niece.
“I never read them,” he explained. “I don’t think it’s my business.”
If a customer doesn’t supply their own memento for a rocking horse, Schroyer inserts a news clipping or something else to document the date. Those items are discovered if the rocking horse is ever restored.
And restoration is another part of his business. People send him rocking horses from their childhood, and he brings back their luster. Others ask that he create or restore a rocking horse to resemble a horse they used to own.
It takes about five hours for Schroyer to carve a rocking horse’s head, and he can rough out the body in an afternoon. The rest of the time he spends sanding.
With each horse he carves, Schroyer adds something different, like adding definition to the musculature. But it’s his painting technique that stands out most.
“It’s a technique, and it takes a little bit of time to do it the way I do it,” he said. “But when you can kind of get in and just play with colors and work on depth, that’s a lot of fun.”
Pictured at top: Brett Schroyer of Greenfield Woodworks.