Hi! I’m Jacqueè Gillespie and I’m the artist who designs and creates all the artwork you see here on my site. I live in northern New Mexico in an old adobe farmhouse where I create my art and watch the horses roam and play.
I love to ride, drive, and just be around horses. They have always been an important part of my life.
I understand how it feels to lose a horse. Let me tell you a story about that.
When I was 19 I began working at a dude ranch that had a lot of horses. On my very first night there, just as the sun was setting – during an extremely cold night in deep snow – I went out to feed and saw that a horse was down. He was just a little guy, a pony, maybe only 40″ tall. He was starving to death because the dominant horses wouldn’t let him eat, due to the way the hay was in one giant pile and not real spread out. I went to the barn to get a toboggan, rolled him on to it, and slid him back to the barn to at least get him up off the snow. I called the owner and said, “You have a horse down, and you need to call the vet right away.”. I was sure we could save him and convinced her to make the call. Little did I know she called the vet, but only to refuse service. She told me all he needed was a penicillin shot.
He ended up dying because no one cared enough to help him. I want to use a curse word just thinking about it, but I won’t. I was really young, very furious and I didn’t know what to do, so I cut off his tail hair.
I swore to his memory that I would take that hair and make something beautiful out of it.
That’s why I made this bracelet. It’s his hair, and I wear it to this day to honor and remember him.
So, that’s why I learned to braid horsehair.
I’ve been doing this for a long time now. Maybe there is something beautiful I could make for you, too.