Description
‘Harmlessness’ by Rustlehare
Artist: Rustlehare
Title: ‘Harmlessness’
Medium: Ink and acrylic on paper
Dimensions: 14.1″ x 9.8″
Framing: Unframed
Year of Creation: 2023
Artwork Will Ship From: Italy
About the Artwork:
One day, Ponto’s sister got lost in the woods, and as soon as Ponto heard about it, he said he would run out and find her. However, just as he was putting on his boots, some hands grabbed him and effortlessly placed him on a chair. Ponto felt as if his bones were as fragile as the wings of a bird he had seen drying up in the sun until a gust of wind carried them away. Then those same hands, rough or stony, touched his belt, and there, behind a shiny button, was a hunter’s knife. Ponto looked at the knife and asked if he could have one like it so that they wouldn’t stop him from going into the woods. But even then, he was told, he wouldn’t be
allowed to get up in the morning to follow the tracks of his lost sister. The reasons were very different, and explaining them wouldn’t change much. Yet, Ponto kicked the floor and his cheeks turned red, and redness spread around his pupils. Then he was toldthat he was too young to face the woods and that he should trust them.
The hands, blinding him with their shadow, touched his hair, then returned to the belt and the knife. Ponto asked how long someone found by spiders could live. They answered, “Not long.” Then he asked how long someone found by snakes could live. “Very little,” they replied. “And someone found by worms?” he asked. “No one is found by worms,” they answered. “Only those found by spiders or snakes later encounter the worms.” At that moment, Ponto scratched his hands and then his knees, feeling his whole body emptying of something, becoming even lighter. He was close to slipping off the chair when he said, “We must hurry, then. We must go.” The hands faced each other, and Ponto listened, hearing them speak, yet hearing nothing at all, as if there was a great silence.
Then Ponto saw the hands move away and grasp the door knob. The knob seemed about to break, but it didn’t, and Ponto was left alone. He waited for days to grow older as they had told him, butmore days passed, and the moon returned high in the night, and he said, “There it is, much closer now. I’ve grown enough.” So he looked for a knife in the cupboard, found one, and was afraid to touch it. “What is a knife, after all?” he said.
In the morning, while the distant scratching of porcupines and the continuous croaking of a toad could be heard in the fog, Ponto left the house and set off, making sure to go straight, as the straight path was the quickest way to the woods. He looked at the tips of his feet, following the trail beneath them. Then he saw leaves covering the ground and stones, and then he saw the cold steam covering the foliage, and then his toes emerged again, above the trail, once more. Until the fog was too high for him to climb over it, and he stopped to catch his breath. He breathed in the rotten smell of tree bark and heard his breath, but he couldn’t feel it. The sound was that of a distant village, barely a hiss, where he seemed to recognize, at times, the tearing of paper or a voice. Then he knew he was in the woods, and the woods were like the dark shapes he saw when he pressed his eyes with his hands. The leaves of the forest were heavy, sticky, and motionless around his face, and they were in front and behind and above, and he no longer knew how to free himself from them. His voice, calling his sister’s name, came out breathless from his mouth, but he said, “I am old enough.” The woods disagreed.
Tale of @unaportanellasiepe
About the Artist:
(Artist Bio)
Rustlehare was born in Milan in a foggy October 1989. She began her studies at the artistic high school, with a figurative address; subsequently she enrolled at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan where he obtained the 1st level academic diploma in Decoration. After a series of classical and rigorous artistic experiences, she decided to attend the Super School of Applied Art at the Castello Sforsesco, also in Milan, where she approached the world of illustration and publishing; a few years later she completed her academic training with the specialization in Graphic art. Later she taught Illustration at the Super High School of Applied Art of the Castello Sforsesco.
Today she organizes exhibitions of her work, training workshops, sells original works and prints and performs illustrations on commission, under the pseudonym of Rustlehare.