User:Jessyanjali/sandbox

Early Life
Born in London, England. 1936. From and early age Sophie Ryder was very artistic. When asked if she was artistic during her childhood she answered "Yes, I used to make weird things out of loo rolls and tissues. I also remember sitting in my room for hours and hours drawing. Endlessly filling up sketch books full of the same thing again and again. I covered whole pages in families of bumble bees and fish with the daddy wearing a bowler hat and carrying an umbrella, mummy wearing an apron and four little babies. They would all be saying things with speech bubbles coming out of their mouths." During her childhood they would go down to the south of France where her family went for summer vacation. She studied Combined Art at the Royal Academy of Arts. Though she received a diploma in painting she was encouraged by her fellow art students and teachers to develop her studies in sculpting. Most of Sophie Ryder's sculptures are of mythical creatures and humans and animals. Her most known pieces are that of the "Lady Hare" Which is sculptures of a hare's head and a human body, which happens to be Sophie Ryder's own body. The feelings and emotions are directly connected to the artist herself. She uses animals to explore human emotions and showing that feelings can be read

Works
Sophie Ryder has mainly focused her work on mythical creatures. Her most know piece is the Lady Hare, a hare with a female human body. (The lady hare photo) "The Lady Hare came about when I was looking for a companion for the Minotaur. I wanted a female body with an animal head and the hare head seemed to work really well.  She is usually accompanied by a Minotaur or a dog or horse, but more recently she has been solitary.  The appearance also changed and a few years ago, the head became more defined as a mask to show more clearly that she is a human underneath."

Influences
When asked about what influences her, Sophie Ryder replies, "I don't sit and contemplate what it is I am trying to achieve. My head is full of ideas all the time. It is part of my life. I don't plan anything I just comes. When a new idea starts developing in my work, I'm not always sure why it is happening. It could be something that occurred years before which triggers off ideas, which started filtering their way into my work gradually over months or years." (http://www.sophieryder.net/) During an interview with Sophie Ryder she was asked why The Hare featured a lot in her works. She replied, "The Hare predominates in my work at the moment and the first question people ask is, why hares? Well, I find it difficult answering that question because I don't really know the answer. It's the same as asking me why I make sculpture, and the answer is, because I feel driven to. So it's difficult to always pin down reasons. My introduction to hares was when my lurcher dog would proudly bring hares home and drop them at my feet. Nothing much I could do about that, except that now, if I want a peaceful walk with my present lurcher, we go on roads and not fields." (http://www.sophieryder.net/)