In Memory of a Rabbit
Acrylic on canvas, 1995, 36" x 48"
In Memory of a Rabbit and Other Love Tigers
In Memory of a Rabbit
Acrylic on canvas, 1995, 36" x 48"
I create my artwork in series and these series can last a few years or a few
months. I worked on my Love Tiger series from 1994-1997, producing many paintings
and drawings on the subject of the Love Tiger and hidden identities. The Love
Tiger series was inspired by a Mexican folk costume that I bought in Mexico.
This costume was created out of a painted canvas jumpsuit and a large carved
wooden mask with mirrored eyes, boar's hair, and teeth. It represented many
things to me. The idea of how a costume is used to conceal and at the same time
to express an ideal was very interesting to me. My tiger paintings became a
visual metaphor for how we wear culture or express our identity. We all wear
costumes of some kind to express our culture and beliefs or simply to change
our identity for a short while, and the narratives of these paintings represented
this for me. My Love Tigers on the surface looked to be passive and beautiful
with their bright colors and hearts painted in their eyes, but they were also
aggressive and dangerous with their sharp teeth that could bite. At the time
I was working on my tiger paintings, I was working as an artist-in-residence
at Patton State Hospital for the criminally insane in San Bernardino, California.
I had been awarded a California Art Council grant to work with the patients
at Patton, and I found the situation of teaching art in a mental hospital very
interesting and unique. One day we had the patients work on paper bag puppets
as their project for the day. Their therapist asked the patients to hold up
their puppets and talk about what their puppets were
about. These patients were withdrawn and silent during this art workshop and
had been isolated from the rest of the hospital because they could not cope
with the other patients. They were considered fragile. As they stood up and
talked about their puppets, I became aware that they were talking about themselves
through their puppets. I began to think about them as Love Tiger subjects and
how they used the puppets to describe the reality of their identity in Patton.
One of the patients held up his puppet and said, "In memory of rabbit,
who was locked up in a cage and had no friends, he had no mate and he died."
I was moved but at the same time inspired by the sadness of this patient's words.
I made several large drawings of Love Tigers standing with paper bag puppets
on their hands, but this is the only painting I created from this experience
at the hospital.
Senor Love Tiger
Lady Love Tiger
