Tales of the Lucky Rabbit
Holly Newnam

How to get a story from a complete stranger?

During a spring trip to Winnipeg I was surprised at the number of cottontail rabbits I saw while walking through the river valley. On a patch of green grass, just past the Nutty Man factory, I spotted a mother rabbit with three babies. This scene of domestic comfort in the middle of the busy city made me smile. Musing in my own world, I failed to notice an approaching group of young men. Realizing the folly of my late hour stroll, I was filled with apprehension. Stopping beside me, the boys noticed the sweet little things and smiled. We went our separate ways after a few murmured words.

I needed to devise a project that would invite the viewer to reflect on the relationship that occurs with these rodents who invade our city. I wanted to document the simple encounters between man and beast that occur every day, often untold, seen as insignificant and pushed back in our memory by the business of life. Rabbits seemed an ideal vehicle for this kind of casual and banal observation; it is a symbolic animal with an innocence reflected in childhood tales, and they were also an important food source for many homesteading families. I hoped to collect stories reflecting the many facets of this small and unobtrusive animal.

As an artist, I have used textile as a way to reflect the domestic interpretation of elements of nature. The designs and colors reflect the forms of a world that has been controlled and contained between paved roads and picket fences. The familiarity of fabric can trigger personal memories and experiences specific to each viewer; I can remember the blue and purple paisley dress my mother made for my grade five Christmas concert and can’t help but bring that association to any fabric even remotely resembling the color or pattern of that dress.

It is the personal relationship between viewer and rabbit that I tried to tap into when making two hundred textile rabbits for Lucky Rabbit that was exhibited at ACE Gallery in Winnipeg during the spring of 2002. Each rabbit was constructed from a different fabric with various bead and craft embellishments. Viewers were invited to add stories to the rabbits as they hung in the gallery; they could also take one home for a year. I hoped, the presence of the textile rabbit in the home would cause the participant to reflect on the urban rabbits who traveled so silently through the city and when the rabbit was returned to me, these experiences would be reflected in story form. The results of this exercise are documented in Tales of a Lucky Rabbit.

gallery  St. Maur  Sobolewska