Jan. 2011 New York: commissioned and published linoleum cut by Harper’s Magazine to illustrate ” The Hare’s Mask ” a short story by Mark Slouka.
The Hare’s Mask – Linoleum cut
EXCERPT:
“…my father would have to go out to the rabbit hutch in the evenings to tend the rabbits and, on Friday nights, kill one for dinner. It was a common-enough chore in those days, but he hated doing it. He’d grow attached, give them names, agonize endlessly. Often he’d cry, pulling on their ears, unable to choose one or, having chosen, to hit it with the stick. Sometimes he’d throw up. Half the time he’d make a mess of it anyway, hitting them too low or too high so they’d start to kick and he’d drop them on the floor and have to do it again. Still, this is what boys did, whether they liked it or not, and so he did what was expected of him.“
Photographs from the cutting and stamping/printing process.
unpublished Linoleum cuts – created from submitted sketches.
hare’s mask 2
“…because even in this time of routine outrages against every code and norm – particularly in this time – the norm demanded its due. And so off he went, after the inevitable scene, the whispering, the tears, shuffling down the dirt path under the orchard, emerging ten minutes later holding the rabbit in his arms instead of by its feet, disconsolate, weeping, schooled in self-hatred . . . but invisible. The neighbors were used to his antics.”
hare’s mask 3
“…my father’s family hid a man in the rabbit hutch. My grandfather, who had fought with the Legionnaires in Italy in 1917, built a false wall into the back making a space two meters long and a half-meter wide. There was no light. You couldn’t stand up. The man, whose name my father never knew, but who may have been Milos Werfel who was captured soon afterward and sent to Terezin where he was killed the following spring, stayed for nine days.”
-Quoted texts are a copyright of Harper’s Magazine 2010-11.
-Linoleum cuts, photographs and texts copyright Raymond Verdaguer, 2010.
Feedbacks
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C.-: ” I can barely stand to look at this piece of art, which I mean only as the highest compliment.”
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H.-: ” Please remove from your email list.”
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N.-: “:-) ”
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M.-: ” This must have been a challenging commission. It certainly conveys fright…”
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H.-: ” you really caputured the feeling of being trapped very well…”
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P.-: “… you are beginning to sound like an art critic, in this case an art critic of your own work!”
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S.-: “Funny, but I like the reverse image as you have carved it more than the way it is printed. It seems to be better balanced in the carved version.”
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M.-: “….We rented a tiny house at a small farm site close to the University. Our tiny kitchenette neighbored with the rabbits killing place and I got really scared of this landlord because I felt as he had pleasure killing the poor rabbits… It may also be that he was a tough, big man and I associated to the fact that he was “pied noir” as he identified himself once (French military born in Alger and returned to France after Alger’s independence).”
3 Comments
robert · November 17, 2010 at 20:28
Dear Raymond, you certainly capture the terror; whether in the eyes of the rabbits or the pent up emotions of the man walled up in the rabbit hutch. If there is escape, it is only temporary.
kappy · November 19, 2010 at 15:19
thanks for the visual, Raymond;
When I was young, my father would hunt the wild NL rabbit in the fall, and bring home a brace or two. Then he would tie the hind legs and hang them on a hook to skin them. That is, until I became tall enough to hold the hind paws in my small hands as he ripped the fur from the carcas and cut up the meat. I can still remember the smell of the entrails and discarded fur. My reward? A fresh ‘lucky’ rabbit foot to flaunt at school the next day. For a few moments, I was the envy of my peers.
Judy · November 19, 2010 at 19:26
Raymond, that is a very sensitive work. We owned a rabbit, twice, for our children…one was torn to shreds by a neighbouring feral dog, who used to hunt cats and caged rabbits. The other rabbit survived for awhile and we gave it away when we moved to the US. They were beautiful animals…but always very jumpy and easily frightened. They were so like some people, who live in fear, expecting the worst every moment. I think the straight lines of the cage and the curving lines of the animals reflect the inability of structures to ‘give way’ to the needs of the living thing…a structure must inhibit freedom, and a wild animal is never happy in a cage…ever. It is the essential message of the human condition…we fight against oppression, whether literal or figurative.
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