Horsetails..

For my newest installation 'Dances of trees' I want to use the hair of horsetails for the driving mechanism of the installation. I want to make a sort of rope,
a raw, long dreadlock, so it can function as a chain to move the tree-parts around.

So, I called with the butcher of a slaughterhouse for horses, to ask if I could have some horsetails. No problem, he said, I could come by any friday, because that's their ususal slaughterday. It was quite an event, for me as a vegetarien, to go and see what happens there. I was confronted with big trunks of meat, skinned and freshly bleeding.. The horsetails were just roughly removed with a saw, so there was still a piece with bone, meat, blood and skin attached to them. Luckily the butcher shaved off the hairs for me, so I didn't have to do that back home.

Though the smell was awful and the trunks of meat, hanging there to bleed were horrible, my curiosity masterd my fear and horror. I didn't even have trouble going in to walk amongst the trunks of meat. The colours of the raw meat were extraordinary, I'd never seen such a thing before. The intestines of one of the horses were also hanging there on a few hooks, it was still intact; the colours of it were also really amazing.

I'm not shure if I could ever work with these materials to make art. It did occur to me how beautiful the raw meat is, but for me it's to shocking, to direct to work with it in art. I could cope with it if I had to, but I wouldn't like it at all. I would certainly loose my appetite for a while..

Some thought it was weird that I just walked in there, as a vegetarian. I guess they think being vegetarian is about sympathy for animals and anti-animalkilling.
I don't mind horses getting slaughtered when they're ill or old, but not just to provide sausages for people. Most people that do eat meat, don't dare to walk in there I bet.. For me it was just curiosity, and a feeling of wanting to see what's happening there, to confirm for myself why I don't eat meat. But above all it was about the hair of the horsetails, that I really wanted for the installation I'm making.

Back home a washed the tails with a bit of hot water, because they were a bit sticky of old blood. I do want them to maintain their scent of horses, so I didn't use any cleaning products. Here you can see some pics of them, hanging outside to dry.







Later I tried to make one long dreadlock of it, but the hairs were so star that I had to switch from dreadlock to twisted rope. This way it di work out, I made a long rope of about 4, maybe 5 metres. Here you can see the result: