Rabbit

Cornered Rabbit, 2003
Beth Cavener Stichter
Stoneware
22" h , 37" w, 34" d

A sculptor introduced to me by a friend, Beth Cavener Stichter could never be accused of being boring (note the name of her website is followtheblackrabbit ).Stichter is interested in the relationship between human and animal and uses
animal body language as a metaphor for human psychology. She uses a variety of animals but there are a significant number of rabbits. These sculptures are ceramic and significant in stature. Stichter sculpts them out of solid clay, breaks them into pieces, hollows them out, fires them and then puts them back together. A time consuming process. Check out her materials and techniques.

Many of her animals are disturbing and awkward, and I think their anthropomorphism is a major cause of that effect. I don't like some of the work (I think the technique is fantastic though), but there are pieces that stand out for me, Cornered Rabbit, being one of them.

A neat blog I just found for a high school sculpture class: http://shssculpture.blogspot.com/2008/09/beth-cavener-stichter.html, and she used Stichter for one of her posts.