вЂњThis one is almost too sweet,вЂќ he says, вЂњbut someone will love it. He grabs a turtle mold and nestles it in the bunnyвЂ™s arm. Fleming pauses in front of one, a rabbit seated on its haunches, and begins to laugh. TheyвЂ™re the basis for the bronze sculptures that have made the Alabama artist famous. The rest of the bedroom is filled with wax molds of elephants and tigers, calla lilies and songbirds, mallards and frogs. Fleming, who loves a sly joke, once tried to sell the sculpture in a gallery in Los Angeles. Nearby on a set of wire shelves, a clay lizard crawls across the palm of a hand thatвЂ™s lost its fingertips itвЂ™s meant to critique the transience of physical beauty. The creature looks both whimsical and unnervingly messianic.

The bird is stark white and unglazed, a technique Fleming uses to emphasize form and theme. On an end table in a spare bedroom, one of FlemingвЂ™s porce-lain penguins from the eighties stands with human arms outstretched and a satchel slung across its shoulders. Inside FlemingвЂ™s one-story Birmingham home I find examples of his little myths. Clay takes on more of a mythological thing.вЂќДЇlemingвЂ™s outdoor chess set, at the Swann House in Birmingham. вЂњI really have such a yearning to go back and do the clay pieces,вЂќ he says. вЂњI never understood it when I was making it.вЂќ Lately, he dreams of taking some time-a year maybe-to sculpt only for himself again, to take a break from the bronze commissions and return to the medium and the imaginative space that gave life to this mysterious white rabbit. вЂњThis is one of those pieces IвЂ™ve just never understood,вЂќ Fleming says. The piece has been outside long enough for moss to turn its grooves green. We are standing in his backyard garden, and the lizard is situated just behind one of FlemingвЂ™s sculptures: a porcelain rabbit with human hands and a strand of thorns curled round its neck. He canвЂ™t bear to see a caged beast in the zoo. This is how Fleming studies animals-either in the wild, or in books and magazines or natural history museums. Fleming leans forward for a better look, an expression of wonder lighting up his face. The lizardвЂ™s black alien eyes stare into ours, but it doesnвЂ™t flee. вЂњLook at him,вЂќ Fleming says, and we drift into a minute of silence. The reptile is as green as spring and lithe, tilting its diamond head at us from its perch on a hydrangea leaf. ItвЂ™s Frank Fleming, of course, who spots the young lizard first.

Fantastical world