Behind the Scenes with The Five-Year-Old: The Artist Who Painted Not So Silent Spring
The Five-Year-Old getting the Bunny’s Eye View for Susan Angevin’s Not So Silent Spring. (Photo: Shala Howell, Not So Silent Spring (c) 2012 Susan Angevin)
This week, The Five-Year-Old and I had the opportunity to meet Susan Angevin, the artist who painted Not So Silent Spring. Local readers can find the bunny sitting outside the Dedham Public Library at 43 Church Street.
In developing the design for her rabbit, Angevin first considered its location and probable use. “I knew it would be outside in a public place for kids to see and climb on. So I thought why not put something on it that you can see and learn about, like the birds you would see in Dedham. That way you can walk around and see birds you want to learn about.”
The swan and the sleeping duck. (Photo: Shala Howell)
Although Angevin developed the vignettes in which the birds appear herself, she consulted Audubon and other bird guides to be certain that she got details such as the orange speckling on the goldfinch eggs and the posture of the sleeping red-headed duck right.
“Did you know that most ducks sleep with one eye open?” Angevin asked The Five-Year-Old. “They do that so they will see someone coming.”
Astute readers of a certain age have probably also picked up on the fact that the rabbit’s name refers to Rachel Carson’s ground-breaking 1962 work Silent Spring, which documented the devastating environmental effect chemical pesticides were having on humans, animals, and especially birds. Carson had been speaking out about the harmful effects of uncontrolled pesticide use since the 1940s, but it wasn’t until Silent Spring was published that her work caught national attention. Today, Carson’s still highly controversial book is widely regarded as a seminal work of the environmental movement and credited with paving the way for the 1972 ban on the agricultural use of DDT in the United States.
The flicker modeled on the one living in Angevin’s backyard. (Photo: Shala Howell)
“The rabbit is my homage to Rachel Carson,” said Angevin, who used to work in conservation herself. “But I called it ‘Not So Silent Spring’ because with all those birds it would get pretty loud.”
The Five-Year-Old, who is far more familiar with the Kratt brothers’ brand of conservation than Rachel Carson’s, wanted to hear more about why Angevin had chosen these particular birds for her bunny.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Angevin feels a personal connection with nearly every bird on her rabbit. The flicker perched on a hollow tree near the tail of her bunny is modeled after a flicker that lives in a hollow tree behind Angevin’s house.
The Three Sisters. (Photo: Shala Howell)
Angevin calls the trio of bluebirds making funny faces on the other side of the rabbit the Three Sisters, because they remind her of the three sisters in her mother’s family.
Meanwhile, the crows pecking at the ground under the Three Sisters recall some of Angevin’s earliest painting projects.
The crows. (Photo: Shala Howell)
“I first started painting with crows,” Angevin told The Five-Year-Old. “I painted buckets with crows around them. So when I painted the rabbit I simply had to include my crows.”
As for the catbird…
The catbird. (Photo: Shala Howell)
“Did you know that you can tame a catbird to come eat raisins out of your hand?” Angevin asked The Five-Year-Old, who was suitably inspired to try it for herself at home. “A friend of mine trains one to do it every summer.”
The Five-Year-Old: “Did you mess up at all?”
“Yes,” Angevin said. “After I painted the swan, I wanted to add the duck, but the first time I painted it, it was too small. The scale was wrong, so I had to paint it again.”
Adapting her design, which had initially been conceived on an 8″ x 10″ sheet of paper, to the realities of a three-dimensional rabbit was also a bit of a challenge. Originally Angevin had planned to paint the owl soaring over a village modeled after Dedham. “But when I began to paint the buildings I realized that it would take too long and detract from the overall design.”
The revised owl vignette. (Photo: Shala Howell)
So Angevin scrapped the village and painted the owl flying over a heron instead.
Completing the project on time was a critical concern for Angevin, who had only two and a half weeks to paint her rabbit. “The bunnies came late and I had to go somewhere. To finish the rabbit on time I basically had to say goodbye to my family.”
Like Martha Taylor and SarahJane Cassie, Angevin painted her rabbit on a table in her house. “The cats were so curious. They would climb on the back of the rabbit. Every morning I’d come down and find a new scratch or two I’d have to fill in.”
Angevin put up a child guard to try to dissuade her cats from going into the dining room where Not So Silent Spring was housed, but “You know cats.”
“It’s funny,” Angevin said. “That rabbit looked much bigger on a table.”
Not So Silent Spring (c) 2012 Susan Angevin
Did you know that I’ve got a book out about the 2012 Dedham Public Art Project?
My book, What’s That, Mom? provides 15 accessible, practical strategies for using public art to spark conversations with children between the ages of 3 and 10 — no artistic talent or insight required.
In addition to providing tips for viewing public art with kids ages 3-10, What’s That, Mom? offers much more detail on the 15 giant fiberglass rabbits included in the 2012 Dedham Public Art Project, including a complete set of (higher quality) photographs, influences on their various designs, and several interviews with the local artists who painted the bunnies.
Related Articles:
- See The Five-Year-Old’s entire body of work on the Dedham Public Art Project (Caterpickles)
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3 Responses to “Behind the Scenes with The Five-Year-Old: The Artist Who Painted Not So Silent Spring”
I’ll right away grab your rss feed as I can’t find your e-mail subscription link or e-newsletter service. Do you have any? Kindly let me know so that I could subscribe. Thanks.
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Yep. Thanks for asking. You can find the box to subscribe to the email service in the right hand column of the site under the title: “Get Caterpickles in your in-box.”
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[…] has a slight scratch on one ear. But Lady Bugs Bunny, Bunny in the Clouds, the Spiral Bunny, and Not So Silent Spring appear to be just […]
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