This project actually started way back in 2006 or so when I decided I wanted to sculpt my interpretation of the Black Rabbit of Inlé from Richard Adams‘ Watership Down.

I was still pretty new to sculpting, but ended up making something I was really happy with and that marked a pretty big turning point for me, both in terms of style and subject.

Last summer, a couple purchased the original piece (you can find photos of it posted here on my tumblr, quite a few pages back), and paid me to create a more detailed base for the piece, and gave me free rein, creatively speaking, to do so.

Talk about an incredibly difficult novel to market. As Richard Adams’ publisher noted to an associate, “I’ve just taken on a novel about rabbits, one of them with extra-sensory perception. Do you think I’m mad?”

The subject of this sculpture, “The Black Rabbit of Inlé”, is a grim reaper figure with touches of Mictlanteuhctli (ignore the spelling on Wikipedia; they use the more popular but linguistically inaccurate transcription of the name) who as the servant of the rabbit god, Frith (the Sun) is responsible for ensuring that all rabbits die at their appropriate time.

Sculptor Rachel Young via Black Rabbit Sculpture.