Neon Horses May Roam From Highway; Sculptor Needs Money To Maintain Them

SALEM, Ore. - An artist who erected 14 neon horses along Interstate 5 plans to corral the illuminated animals and put them in storage unless he can come up with more money.

"I either have to find another funding source or sell them individually," Martin Anderson of Cloverdale said. "I just can't give them away."

Anderson figures it cost $38,750 to create and install the horses, which arts groups say generated an unusual amount of public support.

Vincent Dunn, assistant director of the Oregon Arts Commission in Salem, said he's received calls from people saying how much they like them.

"Usually they're only compelled to call if they're upset and angry," said Dunn, a neon-horse fan himself.

"They're great and they make you see the world in a slightly different way," he said.

Others just passing through feel the same way.

"There is no way I can adequately convey my appreciation for the magic you have created," Tim Larson, a Redding, Calif., resident, wrote Anderson after seeing the neon herd. "All the combined works of Christo cannot match the impact of your horses of the night."

Since January, when the horses were plugged in, they electrified the winter landscape and brightened many a commute between Salem and Eugene. They came in blue, ruby, pink, green, yellow, peach and magenta.

Owners of the property where they were pastured paid to keep them lighted 24 hours a day. Anderson figured it came to about 40 cents per day per horse.

Some horse-art fanciers would like to return the herd every winter as an annual installation, said Sharon Morgan, executive director of the Oregon Coast Council for the Arts.

Her arts group provided a $1,000 grant that originally helped get the horses from Anderson's real-life barn onto the freeway at 10 locations.