Who Was Blackie?

The Blackie's Pasture Project

About The Artist

In a field known as Blackie's Pasture stands a life-size bronze statue created by the noted Bay Area artist, Albert Guibara. It was erected in June of 1995 to honor Tiburon's beloved "mascot" Blackie.

For 28 years you couldn’t leave or return to Belvedere or Tiburon without passing a swaybacked horse named Blackie. A cavalry horse in his youth, Blackie later became a cutting horse at rodeos, appearing in the Salinas, California, rodeo although his owner, Anthony Connell, doesn’t remember the year. He was retired to a private pasture at the corner of Tiburon Boulevard and Trestle Glen Road when he was 12 years old. Mr. Connell visited him daily, as did children and adults alike who could be seen regularly feeding Blackie carrots, sugar, and hay.

Those who lived in the area when Blackie was alive considered him as belonging to everyone. In spite of his age and swaybacked condition, many felt he still exhibited a military air and pride that came from having been a great horse in his early years. Back then the Army stabled horses at the Presidio. In the spring they saddled up, rode to Yosemite, and patrolled the park all summer. When winter arrived they returned to the Presidio. Blackie was one of the horses used on this detail.

It was a sad day when Blackie collapsed on February 27, 1966. The Marin County Health Department approved his burial in the pasture where to this day his grave is marked by a simple cross and a memorial plaque made possible by contributions from concerned citizens of the peninsula. Blackie lived for 40 years, which is unusual for a horse. It was love that sustained him, the love he received from old-timers and newcomers alike.

Thanks to a wonderful gift by the family of Gordon Strawbridge, Tiburon's first mayor, the Tiburon Peninsula Foundation erected a life-sized sculpture of Blackie in his pasture which is visible to all who drive by.

Communities grow and change. Buildings are demolished, space that was once open is developed. This is inevitable in an area that’s close to an attractive city. Under the pressure of change, some places retain their sense of community while others lose it.

Losing it or keeping it is all part of a complicated equation. Communities that retain their identity, that continue to be special places even as they change, seem to have several things in common—a sense of shared values, a desire to protect the environment, a wish to preserve the old where possible and to ensure that the new is worthy, a concern for the community's history, myths and traditions, and a goal of continuity—passing along a sense of the past. Blackie is a piece of Tiburon's past, a link with earlier times, a memory that older residents can share with newcomers. It’s a part of Tiburon's story.

Albert Guibara has the distinction of being many sculptors in one. There has never been an absolute "Guibara style" because he is always experimenting with new forms, new media, and new visions. To walk through Guibara's garden is to take a tour through the eclectic avenues of his lively imagination. Here you find a representational bronze of an eagle, there a couple of rotund stylized human figures, out in the garden an 18-foot tubular abstraction in stainless steel, a few more steps and you're face to face with a 12-foot bear. It's like walking through a gallery of many different artists, all named Guibara.

Born in Los Angeles in 1944, Albert Guibara spent most of his adult working life in the San Francisco Bay Area. He began sculpting at the age of 24 and, from the start, his subject matter was as diverse as one could possibly imagine. Restless with simply repeating a single image in the same way, he has consistently stretched his talent into uncharted areas of creation to produce a body of work that effectively defines his artistic versatility. Albert Guibara lives in Hillsborough, California with his wife and three children.

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