This weekend, May 2 & 3, 12-6 pm, is Somerville Open Studios, the biggest arts event in our quaint and scenic town. Naturally, I’m behind my time in letting you all know about it, but such is me.
I’ll be turning my front porch into a mini exhibition celebrating the spring season, its moods, symbols, weather, and magic, featuring our wild city rabbits among others.
Click here for details and directions. I’m in the East Somerville side of town.
Weather Note: The forecast is for “chance” of rain this weekend. Please subscribe to this website or follow me on Bluesky to receive updates in case I get rained out on Saturday or Sunday.
You can also see my collage-assemblage, “Pink Yarrow,” at Somerville Museum, and a new collage-painting, “April,” at the Brickbottom Gallery, both indoors.
Enjoy a sneak peak at some new works in progress, which I hope to bring out for SOS.
On the magic of rabbits.
Rabbit, bring me luck.
Rabbit, bring me many.
Rabbit, bring me happiness,
But for my foe, not any.
That little ditty is my pitch for wild rabbits as a role model for our times, because they symbolize the four powers we all need right now. Good luck to get through the storms. Abundance to meet our needs, one way or another. Joy in love and pleasure. Resilience to take the blows and never back down because, dammit, these are our streets.
I think, for most people, spring is a cutesy-pootsy season of flowers and baby animals, but I see it differently.
To me, spring is a time when the new forcibly replaces the old, dead, and rotten. Spring brings out the big passions and changes everything, ready or not. It’s births and beginnings. It’s melting and mess. It’s bright colors and clean green shoots pushing through the mud. It’s migrating birds, emerging bees, and for me, it’s the rabbits.
The old rabbits of winter, scarred, skinny, and strong. The new rabbits like delicate treasures nested in our flower beds.
Rabbits making the first of many babies. Rabbits dodging a thousand dangers. Rabbits robbing our gardens, lounging in the sun, grooming their tiny little faces with their tiny little paws (omg). Rabbits waging war all over town to claim and defend their territories, be they lush parks or weedy train yards.
If I have my way, it’ll be all lush parks and gardens, because where the rabbits thrive, so can we.
-Jen
Note: This post contains 407 words, which according to western numerology, reduces to 11 and then to 2. In tarot, 11 is the number of Justice in some systems and Strength in others, and 2 is the number of The High Priestess. Justice, Strength, and Wisdom.
Jen Fries Arts 