Originally shown as part of Broadside Attractions, Vanquished Terrains at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco, in collaboration with poet Elise Ficarra and sound artist Evelyn Ficarra, this ambitious piece was conceived as a response to the extermination of the (human-introduced) Marin white deer at Point Reyes.
Artist Karrie Hovey has created sinuous, evocative deer from needle-felted white wool, with blank eyes and graceful, antlered heads. Their legs extend and intertwine,rootlike, ending not in hooves, but in a tangle of form in which it is impossible to separate flora from fauna, above ground from below.
“…
white deer gather picking their way through forest litter
bodies alert to hunters’ snaps in the brush
bucks rake antlers against trunks and branches does nudge fawns
in a blink they multiply devouring meadow grass
unhinged by their bleats and bellows
hopped a train from Eurasia crossed oceans to get here
now they are eating the frame from the window nibbling the tips of your sheets
new moon they peer into your dream
hoof prints root in the earth of your flesh
stranded as you are without their alien light…”
– Elise Ficarra
More information on the artist can be found here: Karrie Hovey
That is my favorite thing I have seen perhaps all year! This is really cool!
I’m very glad to hear it, and I will pass it along to the artist as well! Please join us for the art tour tomorrow if you can – it’s better in person, of course. -Anne