Reception & Artist Talk, 5:00 - 7:00pm, Thursday, January 25, 2024.
American Rabbit
I finished this rabbit on the first day of 2024. I started it in 2017 and put it aside, not being able to figure out how to finish it. Seven years later, I looked at it with different eyes. The title and the passage in the text on the piece comes from a Neil Young song which Sufjan Stevens did a cover on in 2023 on his album Javelin.
Paris Rabbits - Natural & White Chocolate
“Who doesn’t like a rabbit?” I have asked, knowing full well that there are those who find these images too safe and sweet. Obviously, the image of a rabbit is a loaded image. Rabbits carry symbolic meaning that varies widely and is often contradictory. They are safe, soft, and cuddly and therefore an appropriate symbol for the child in each of us. But they are also fearful, shy, and vulnerable, and sometimes prey for the hunter. At the same time, they remind us of our own sexuality, desire, and abundance speaking to the adult in us. Ultimately, rabbits may symbolically assure us of hope and happiness for the future with new life and new beginnings. The rabbit as trickster and the artist as trickster also play an important part in my work.
In March 2023, I returned to la Cité Nationales des Arts in Paris, for a residency that had been aborted by the pandemic in March 2020. I focused on two bodies of work using rabbit imagery - natural rabbits using source images from an October 2022 Virginia Rabbit Breeder's Association Fair and white chocolate rabbits, because it was Eastertime in Paris and there were chocolate rabbits everywhere.
The Black Unicorn Rabbits
Continuing my exploration of the Unicorn tapestries these black rabbits came about after reading Larry Ward's new book, America's Racial Karma - An Invitation to Heal. A passage from Ward's poem "When I Became Currency" inspired the creation of these black rabbits: "I touch the sun and am touched by the moonlight like all beings."
A Unicorn Fox & A Unicorn Rabbit
During my brief aborted stay at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris in March 2020 I barely began a series of drawings based on the rabbit and fox images in the so-called Lady and the Unicorn tapestries that are housed in Paris's Museum of the Middle Ages. Rabbits are the only animals (other than the unicorn) that are present in every one of these tapestries. They appear 34 different times. Rabbits were not kept as pets in the Middle Ages, instead they were wild and hunted by both humans (and foxes). For these drawings, the rabbit is an obvious stand-in for us humans during this pandemic, and the foxes represent the virus. It’s all nature.
Silk Screen Experiment
I ususally take my own documentary photos of rabbits in rabbit breeder show, state fairs, etc. These become source images for my drawings. In 2019 at Studio Two Three I created this really limited edition of a silk screen prints using one of those photos.
KIKI
At the beginning of the pandemic, I watched a lot of YouTube videos of Justin Vivian Bond performing as Kiki (of Kiki and Herb) and Auntie Glam. I made these drawings from still captures from one of those videos. Thank God for the talent, hilarity, glamour, charm, grace, and resistance of this performer who helped entertain and enlighten us when we were in lock down. They have become family to me.
Other Family Members
Finally, I have included several other images related to family members. First there is my husband and partner of almost 50 years, Ron Lee. My mom and her potato salad. Martha Stewart who I often call Saint Martha who is with me in the kitchen whenever I cook. And finally Michael Birch Pierce, my Namefellow.
