The ''Bleu Horses'' is a set of 39
horse
The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million yea ...
sculptures made primarily of steel and
permanently installed on a hillside off
Highway 287 just north of
Three Forks, Montana
Three Forks is a city in Gallatin County, Montana, United States and is located within the watershed valley system of both the Missouri and Mississippi rivers drainage basins — and is historically considered the birthplace or start of the M ...
.
The name of the installation is taken from a
color
Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are assoc ...
of horse known as a
blue roan, though the live animal color is actually closer to gray.
The horse sculptures were created and set up by artist
Jim Dolan of
Belgrade, Montana
Belgrade is a city in Gallatin County, Montana, United States. The population was 10,460 at the 2020 census. It is the largest city in Montana that is not a county seat.
Belgrade and surrounding areas are experiencing significant population gro ...
, who previously had created other complex outdoor sculptures over the past 30 years, including a herd of elk placed upon the lawn of a bank in
Bozeman, and a
fly fisherman sculpture in
Ennis.
He also donated four of his sculptures at
Montana State University (MSU), and installed a flock of geese in the terminal of
Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport
Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport (Gallatin Field) is located in Belgrade, Montana, United States, eight miles (13 km) northwest of Bozeman. Owned by the Gallatin Airport Authority, it has been Montana's busiest airport since 2013. ...
.
[
]
Background
Dolan spent 15 months and his own money to create, transport and install the horses as a gift to the people of Montana. When he moved to Montana from California in 1966, he intended to live there permanently and be an asset to the state: "I always knew that someday I’d have a specific project ... I decided n 2013 on my 64th birthday, this is what I would do." The horse sculptures were installed on Kamp Hill on land donated by Dean Folkvord of Wheat Montana on a patch of unfenced acreage that is not suitable for farming. Folkvord came up with the idea of using Kamp Hill when Dolan stopped into the Wheat Montana Bakery for coffee and expressed frustration to Folkvord about his difficulties finding an appropriate site for installing the horses he was creating.
Development and installation
The sculptures are realistic enough to appear live from a distance, but are intended to be somewhat "impressionistic." To emphasize the elegance of the horse, the legs of the horse sculptures are one-third longer than those of real horses, and they average high at the withers
The withers is the ridge between the shoulder blades of an animal, typically a quadruped. In many species, it is the tallest point of the body. In horses and dogs, it is the standard place to measure the animal's height. In contrast, cattle a ...
. Dolan said, "They're symbols of horses and what horses mean to Montanans. But at first sight, I want people to believe they are real horses, just for a second."[ They are posed in a variety of realistic positions from foals suckling mother's milk, to alert steeds, to supine equines.][ According to Dolan, "I tried to place the horses the way I see the horses living in their natural environment according to their nature."][
Twelve of the horses have their heads placed on ]ball bearing
A ball bearing is a type of rolling-element bearing that uses balls to maintain the separation between the bearing races.
The purpose of a ball bearing is to reduce rotational friction and support radial and axial loads. It achieves this ...
s so they are able to move and one can move its head and neck.[ Each horse is painted blue with accents of black and white to give their forms a sense of depth.][ They have ]manes
In ancient Roman religion, the ''Manes'' (, , ) or ''Di Manes'' are chthonic deities sometimes thought to represent souls of deceased loved ones. They were associated with the ''Lares'', '' Lemures,'' '' Genii'', and ''Di Penates'' as deities ( ...
and tails made of polyester rope that has been unraveled and attached so it moves realistically in the wind. The 4,000 feet of rope needed for the horses was unraveled by hand by the employees at Reach, Inc., a supported workplace for people with developmental disabilities. Dolan said, "They really enjoyed doing it, and when I told them what the ropes were for, they felt like they were involved in something bigger than just the job. So those people, they’re part of this, too.”[ The horses were permanently placed on the land by having long stakes welded to their hooves and placed into holes created with a ]jackhammer
A jackhammer (pneumatic drill or demolition hammer in British English) is a pneumatic or electro-mechanical tool that combines a hammer directly with a chisel. It was invented by William Mcreavy, who then sold the patent to Charles Brady King ...
. A tractor was used to place each sculpture in its precise location.[
In December 2013, three of the sculptures were stolen off the hill but recovered near ]Townsend Townsend (pronounced tounʹ-zənd) or Townshend may refer to:
Places United States
*Camp Townsend, National Guard training base in Peekskill, New York
*Townsend, Delaware
*Townsend, Georgia
*Townsend, Massachusetts, a New England town
** Townsend ...
a day later. People driving along U.S. 287 can take a dirt road that goes around the back of the herd to view them at closer range.[ To view the horses from the highway, cars can pull over to the shoulder of the road at the bottom of the hill, and it is possible to walk along the highway to a vantage point at a former pulloff midway up the hill that is now closed to parking.
]
See also
*''Grandfather Cuts Loose the Ponies
''Grandfather Cuts Loose the Ponies'' (also known as the Wild Horse Monument) is a public art sculpture created by David Govedare in 1989–1990 and situated near Vantage, Washington. It consists of 15 life-size steel horses which appear to be gal ...
''
References
{{reflist
2013 sculptures
Equestrian statues in the United States
Horses in art
Outdoor sculptures in Montana
Buildings and structures in Gallatin County, Montana
2013 establishments in Montana