3 Rabbits

Have you ever watched a rabbit run? It goes through quite a few configurations. This piece captures three different running gestures of one rabbit.

This piece was inspired by seeing "The "Bathers," a series of four sculptures that Matisse made over a period of at least a dozen years. (When I was a kid, my father bought all of the Time/Life series of books on famous artists. I can remember seeing these sculptures that Matisse made of the back of one of his models.) As he progressed with each piece, it became simpler, and by the fourth one, it was almost totally an abstract interpretation of a woman's back.

The other important inspiration in making the three poses of a running rabbit was from looking at the work of the photographer, Eadweard J. Muybridge. I have continued to be fascinated by his photographs capturing the movement of animals and humans.