Drollery Hare, Poppies & Susan's

This body of work draws inspiration from the illuminators of the High Middle Ages. The image to the left is a recreation of "The Hare and the Snail. "Detail of hare and snail from Breviary, Use of Verdun (The Breviary of Renaud de Bar; The Breviary of Marguerite de Bar). Winter portion. Metz (France), 1302–1303. London, British Library, MS Yates Thompson 8, fol. 294.

 

My materials and processes have been updated for the modern era, resulting in eco-friendly recipes. The Drollery Hare transports us to a time when scriptoria bustled with scribes and artists crafting intricate illuminations within manuscripts. Images of knights fighting snails first emerged in Northern French illuminated manuscripts. A few years on from 1290 – although, slightly less consistently – these same images started appearing in Flemish and English manuscripts. English and Flemish painters started adding drolleries—playful scenes like hares and snails dueling with swords—to illuminated manuscripts in the late 13th century. From about 1290 through the 15th century, these whimsical images became a widely popular feature across many manuscripts. A drollery—sometimes called a grotesque—is a small, whimsical image found in the margins of illuminated texts. Traditionally populated with ravenous rabbits or sword wielding snails, these playful motifs inspired me to create my own interpretation of the drollery form: "Hare and the Snail" while bringing attention to the story being told. It is the story of the unseen world of furry life. Each animal depicted is highlighted because of a majestic and personal engagement with each species.  Each painting tells the story of ecology, symbiosis, mutualism, habitats, and the effects of climate change. The completed body will present 12 framed paintings and 12 photographs. Similar to  binary stars, they co-exist in a place both dream-like and historical, documenting the present to preserve the past.