White Rabbit Wall Art

The story behind the work: Sometimes a piece begins with a carefully imagined plan. Sometimes it evolves as I go. Somewhere In Between began with a sheet of black-and-white checkerboard paper that had been sitting in my craft stash for years. It was one of those materials I kept saving for “the right project.” When I finally pulled it out, I imagined using almost the entire sheet as a crisp geometric backdrop for a white rabbit sculpture. But as I worked, that perfect order started to feel…too perfect.

Instead of leaving the checkerboard intact, I found myself tearing it apart. The clean pattern became fragmented, weathered, almost archaeological. It felt less like decoration and more like a world in transition—as though an orderly universe had begun to crack, fold in on itself, and become something entirely new.

Now, my rabbit no longer belonged in a neat graphic space. It needed to be emerging from somewhere. I began sculpting twisted tree roots around it, creating the impression that it was climbing out of a hidden burrow. The roots became a threshold between two realities: one governed by straight lines and certainty, the other by growth, instinct, and transformation.

When I attached everything to the wooden panel, though, I knew the composition wasn’t finished. The checkerboard and roots created a strong conversation between geometry and nature, but they still felt visually isolated from one another. The piece needed something that could weave through both worlds.

The answer came from an unexpected place.

Years ago I had saved an old bent metal candle holder because I loved the scrollwork at its base. Rather than throwing it away, I broke it apart and made molds from its ornamental curves. Those molds eventually became the starting point for the turquoise and violet vines that now wind across the surface of the piece.

Rigid metal became flowing botanical forms and something about to be discarded found a second life and an entirely new purpose.

Looking back, I realize the entire piece is about transitions.

• The rabbit exists somewhere between hiding and emerging.
• The checkerboard exists somewhere between order and collapse.
• The roots are somewhere between shelter and entrapment.
• The vines are somewhere between ornament and living growth.

Even the materials themselves have crossed boundaries—from paper to sculpture, from metal to vines, from found objects to imagined landscapes.

I titled the piece Somewhere In Between because it seems to occupy that uncertain territory we all experience from time to time. The place between certainty and curiosity. Between the familiar and the unknown. Between the lives we’ve outgrown and the ones we’re just beginning to discover.

I’ve learned that this is often how my favorite pieces come into being. They begin with an idea, but somewhere along the way the materials start suggesting their own connections. Instead of forcing them back toward my original plan, I’ve learned to listen.