The Most Common Inhabitant of the U.S South West Desert

It is practically unthinkable to describe the Southwestern U.S desert areas without the jackrabbit as its prominent dweller. There are indeed a few subspecies of jackrabbit (hare) from New Mexico to California, and it is said that the ones in Arizona are the largest.

Here is a picture of a jackrabbit I found on the Internet:

Recently I found the bones of a cow that was attacked by coyotes many moons ago. Given that sun bleached aspect of the bones and the mineralization, I assumed these were left in the desert sand at least a year ago.

So, I picked up the remnant of the skull and the two scapulae. Animals have been chewing on the ends of the scapulae giving them an amazingly symmetrical pattern. The level of mineralization was so high that the skull bones were now brittle. I carefully brought them home and wondered what I was going to do with them.

The skull is really a small remnant of the cow’s anterior skull area.  The perfect symmetry of the scapulae immediately made me think of ears, and voilà I had the semblant of a strange rabbit head!

After gluing the scapulae to the cranium, I placed a piece of cottontail rabbit fur to what is now the forehead.  So the phantasmagoric jackrabbit head now looked like this:

There was so much smooth space on this sand and wind polished bones that I could not resist bringing out my oil paint tubes and painting knife. Without any planning, I started painting – the right “ear” ended up inlayed with a man’s face; 

The close-up of the man's shows a 3-D painting technique on a 2-D surface:

While the left “ear” shows the face of a Middle Eastern woman with a black face-cover.

And here is the close up showing a mouse-like critter on the forehead of the woman, looking right...!

I love writing and painting with no plan or theme. Discovering what might have been in my sub-conscience is as much a pleasure as finishing the write-up or the painting itself.

Now, I had a rabbit head, ears that tell a story. I needed to fill the space on what is the snout of the skull. The flat panels of bone were perfect for some joyfulness from Kokopelli playing trombone and drums! These now became the eyes of this strange creation....

Interestingly, depending on the angle of view, these Kokopelli eyes made the jackrabbit happy (as above) or pensive/sad as below:

All I needed now was to build a stand out of petrified wood I find in the desert and giving the jackrabbit an attitude as close as I could to the real one. 

And here is my creation out of cow bones and wood:

How does it compare to the picture at the outset? I think I like the painted ears better!

May 21, 2018

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2018