For William Schaaf, art has never been about decoration—it’s an act of devotion, a way to make sense of life through creation. At 80, he’s still in his studio, shaping horses from bronze, clay, and canvas with the same focus he’s carried for more than six decades. The horse, his lifelong subject, has become his chosen language. Each one speaks of endurance, memory, and the unseen link between body and spirit. Schaaf’s approach draws from the spiritual traditions of the Zuni and Navajo peoples, whose fetishes were never made for display but for healing and connection. His work borrows from that ethos, transforming craft into a meditation on energy, ritual, and renewal.
Tantra Gurl
“Tantra Gurl” stands thirty-six inches tall, cast in bronze but alive in presence. Schaaf calls her a “power horse,” though she feels more like a spirit than a sculpture. Her body hums with quiet motion—as if she’s about to step forward, or perhaps breathe. Now housed in three Florida museums, she remains more than an artwork in Schaaf’s eyes. He speaks of her not as a possession but as a companion, a creation with its own essence.
The idea for Tantra Gurl began not from sketches or blueprints but from feeling. Schaaf wanted to give form to fertility and continuity—ideas that anchor his understanding of the horse’s role in Native American fetish traditions. The Zuni and Navajo carved their fetishes as protectors and conduits, each infused with spiritual purpose. Schaaf amplified that idea, crafting a monumental fetish—part animal, part talisman.
Her surface is both ancient and immediate. The curves and musculature don’t exist to impress but to convey intent. Schaaf molds each contour as if channeling something remembered rather than invented. The result is a creature that feels both grounded and ethereal. She’s not polished to a showroom shine; her bronze is burnished, softened by fire and time. The patina is her skin, the artist’s dialogue made visible.
Schaaf likens patination to “watercoloring with fire,” a process where heat and chemistry blend color into metal. It’s a dance of control and surrender—an apt metaphor for his work as a whole. In Tantra Gurl, the finish shimmers in layered browns and soft greens, echoing the tones of sacred stones used in Native rituals. The effect is subtle and alive, as though she was pulled from the earth rather than cast from it.
Viewed up close, Tantra Gurl resists stillness. Her stance feels suspended between strength and motion, her head tilting upward as if listening. Schaaf’s horses are never mere depictions; they’re emotional forms, shaped by instinct and reflection. He sees the horse as a vessel of memory—an image that carries personal and collective experience. In this sculpture, that memory feels almost tangible, embedded in every ridge and curve.
The horse has long served Schaaf as a symbol of vitality and spirit. Over the years, it has taken on different meanings—freedom, endurance, fertility, transformation. Tantra Gurl folds all of those into one unified presence. There’s sensuality in her arcs, humility in her posture, and quiet knowledge in her surface. She feels both human and divine, alive and eternal.
Schaaf often says that art is his medicine. The act of making is how he heals, prays, and remembers. Casting bronze, with all its steps—melting, shaping, firing—is ritual work. It demands patience, focus, and acceptance of chance. Through that process, Tantra Gurl emerged as more than an object; she became a kind of offering.
After more than sixty years of creation, Schaaf still treats every horse as part of an ongoing conversation—between his hands, his history, and something larger than himself. Tantra Gurl, in her balanced stillness and quiet power, may be one of his clearest statements. She embodies his lifelong search to join the physical and the spiritual, to find grace in the act of making.
In Schaaf’s hands, bronze becomes something more than metal—it becomes breath, memory, and faith. Tantra Gurlstands as proof that art can be alive without motion, that form can hold energy. Decades after her casting, she continues to emanate that same grounded light—silent, steady, and unending.
