Wenda Watch on Thu, 10 May 2012 10:13pm
I have adored this picture for years now and have an upper body cropped version which
rotates as my computer wall paper pretty often. I keep being called back to this image and
just staring and wondering and feeling and imagining everything that lead up to that moment
because you have captured such an incredibly specific emotional state on this dang rabbit
and I cycle through so many thoughts and feelings while looking at it.
I wanted to share it on Pinterest and realize besides the small "Jose" 2009 at the bottom
(which I always thought said "Tori" LOL) I didn't know who had created this incredibly
sublime, incredibly specific, and hilariously heartbreaking work.
I love it (if I may) because it does create a humorous reaction at first glance but stay with
him (?) a while and the viewer will find comfort in it as well. Comfort in knowing someone
else, well someTHING else, has experienced the very specific type of betrayal that is happening here.
If the viewer stays with the image long enough they begin rooting for him in the
confrontation to come because its clear the one doing the betraying has all the friends while
our little under-bunny has nothing but his cigarettes, hurt and disgust that his once (had to
have been to cause this deep of a reaction) best friend is now part of whatever group they
had both once abhorred and swore never to be part of.
I didn't know the official title until now-"Le Rabbit" I guess it is but I call it "The Recognition
of Hypocrisy" because I had been staring at his face for so long trying to put my finger on
just what he was feeling, cause I knew feeling that way too but just didn't have the words
then one day it hit me. That look is "The Recognition of Hypocrisy." I thought that fitting
but then tried to get clever and suggested "The Recognition of HOP-ocrisy" which was the
only time Mr. Rabbit spoke to me. I said it aloud "The Recognition of HOP-ocrisy" to which
he just slightly turned to me with equal disdain and disgust, exhaled a cloud of purple
smoke and simply said, "Don't." (looks me up and down with his blood shot judgmental
gaze)"don't. . . . . .don't do that." and slipped right back into his contempt of "them."
More than likely his old art school room mate and best friend who had chosen to share the
same dorm room for all four years with our hero has recently become the new darling of the
art world gaining huge success with his latest offering: meticulously reproduced
Masterpiece Art Works featuring all the great "personalities" of the classics-The Mona Lisa,
Venus de Milo, Blue Boy, The Scream etc all incomparably repainted down to the finest
detail but with one tiny difference: The addition of a cigarette. All the greats have lit up and
the statement that made crossed so many boundaries and borders it was inconceivable the
many layered statements it made. It explained why Mona is smiling. With just the addition of
a cigarette the ageless mystery woman now seems to be sitting on the edge of her bed
enjoying a post coitus smoke while she's talking to the John getting dressed in the
bathroom. Venus looks no longer so much the Goddess as a frightened teenage Texas
beauty with all of her Angels having lit up like a bunch of winged hairdressers in some
Southern Salon frantically working on her for this years Miss Teen USA pageant. The
Scream, of course, is coming from someone just diagnosed with cancer and has been
caught for all eternity with a cigarette slapped up against his head in utter disbelief of the
diagnosis. "Cancer??!! How could THAT be??!!" The Girl With the Pearl Ear Ring now
appears to be turning her head to avoid exhaling in the face of another and the most
controversial of them all is the Michelangelo knock off. There, hanging from the ceiling is an
exact replica of a large portion of the Sistine Chapel where now, rather than man reaching
for God in his eternal struggle for Divinity he is instead just bumming a light from the Lord
who has, of course, produced a small orange flame from his fingertip. That once cigarette
took man's greatest quest, to be more like God, and turned it into a moment outside the
stage doors of a Def Leopard concert where two dudes are just hangin out, kickin the dirt
and hopin to get to meet someone from the GREATEST ROCK BAND EVER! Yeah. One
cigarette did all that.
By stealing the most reproduced art pieces of all time and reproducing them again and
just sticking a simple cigarette here in there his old roomie had shot to the top of the World
Art Scene leaving our friend here, who came to this opening thinking this was the moment
they had dreamed of to crash their own Gallery Opening and expose the fact The Emperor
had no clothes then after the snoots had left they would be as they always had been; in the
corner by the ashtray smoking, laughing, and butchering the crowd of Ladies Art League
Wanna Be's.
Well here he was, by the ashtray all right but that was it. His friend had quickly waved to
him across the room and given him the "thumbs up" before going back to talk to "them."
The thumbs up? The thumbs up? It was like some type of really nerdy alien had taken over
his friends body and had abandoned him here with nothing but his Pall Malls and contempt
to keep him warm. And it was doing just that --actually getting him pretty damn hot as he
thought about it more.
You see he hadn't said anything because he thought it was all part of the joke. The "Master
Plan" they had gone over a million times over a million beers and a million coffees. Simply
put they were going to get famous making crap art and then expose it as crap and show that
all the snooty art dealers and professors and critics didn't know shit and then they were
gonna laugh their asses off while all those arrogant bastards slunk away in shame. But now
he is realizing that not only had his best buddy sold out, but he had done so using an idea
Peter Rottentail here had come up with one incredibly long, laugh filled, acid-fueled spring
break ago.
That year with neither of them having any place to go, they had decided to just stay
together in the dorms and have the campus and dorms to themselves. They had spent the
time tripping, watching "Eraserhead" over and over and in a flash of inspiration, which would
eventually get them suspended, our hero had convinced his friend that they should break
into the school Art library and make a statement against this bourgeois dump with its
bourgeois art teachers and bourgeois education and go and freakin draw cigarettes in the
hands of all the subjects of the famous world works they had been studying so far.
Poor fella. This whole thing has been a heartbreaking, HARE-raising event.
Wait a minute.
Scratch that last part.
I've been told not to do that.
Anyway, it was at this moment, the spring break memory, the realization his friend had sold
out and had sold out with HIS idea and even more aggravating was realizing this whole time
he believed in their master plan and had wasted years being a tragic coffee swilling artist
while everyone else had grown up and moved on. "Well thanks for telling ME guys!" He
thought. "Assholes." The always wascally and now hurt, abandoned and betwayed
wabbit turned to someone only seconds before had been his life long best friend and
started watching him. He knew his every move and every gesture and he could not believe
what he was witnessing. He quickly decided to hell with being the victim and running off he
would instead get comfortable and play the role of judge, jury and executioner all in one. He
kicked out one leg and rested back on the other one giving him one of the many attributes
that left people certain he was gay, draped a paw over his pot belly, the newest addition to
his rapidly aging body, lit a cigarette, inhaled, locked his gaze across the room on his now
EX-best friend and this time began the butchering alone. "God. Looook at him.
Just loooook at him. Mincing about hugging all of "them" and laughing. He's really into this.
He's really having a good time. He's really laughing. Laughing. God that annoying high
pitched ridiculous laugh that only I could get out of him till he's beg me to stop, twice I got
him to actually pee his pants laughing that laugh. (wells up) that�s my laugh. How could he
laugh my laugh with "them?" *snap* No!I refuse to be hurt by him. Him. God. Loook at him. I
oughta go over there and let everyone know I came up with the cigarette idea. I should be
surrounded by idiots all calling me gold. Not him. Him. God! Just loooook at him."
CLICK!
That's the moment your mind snapped that picture. To me.
I know that was a bit much but your work has been such a source of joy, laughter,
empowerment and obviously inspiration I would be remiss if I finally tracked you down and
didn't share some of the madness your work has sparked. Thank you and I would LOVE to
see more of it. Please email me if there is a link to a site of your stuff. Again, thank
you and I am off to share him with the Pinterest world whom I'm certain are going to love
him, well maybe not LOVE him. Fear him. That's probably more true and appropriate. I'm
certain they will fear him. LOL
XOXO-Wenda
"Peter Rottentail"
That's pretty good!
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