Laine Justice

PAGE 1
LITTLE BIG EARS
Coptic bound illuminated manuscript
31 x 21 inches [elephant folio]
2011-2020

Here, everything was different. Monster clouds flooded in, rolling on waves of salty air.
Bunny wrapped up in floppy ears, hoping to be anywhere but Here. 
It was warm, dark, and stormy.

Greens uprooted, potatoes drowned, and flowers turned black. 
Leek, sweet pea, lilac, violet & viola, leaned into Bunny as plump drops pelted the earth. 

Under twists of mud, moldy muffin, and pie tin, Bunny’s lips quivered, hushing a cry. 


She dove straight down underground with no time to waste, as her favorite place, the tender garden above, fast turned into no place, anyone, would ever, want to be.

PAGE 2
LITTLE BIG EARS
Coptic bound illuminated manuscript
31 x 41 inches


There, upriver, far beyond where Bunny thought the universe ended, 
a fierce little upstart named Sourdough was whipping cream and beating eggs. 
He had one obsession: to be sweet. Not sour, not salty, and certainly not tart, but 
sweet. 

From his perch of Swedish pancakes, he watched ovaltine minions place cherry 
and chocolate chip atop puff pastry with precision. 
Hardboiled and soft, fried, poached, and pickled, the eggs he ruled scurried about 
baking cake, frosting muffins, filling eclairs, and buttering Sour’s short stack, 
day and night.
They even buttered him up when he was dreaming. 



He 
had 
never 
smiled 
before 
& 
this
 made him
very
angry

So angry
that he
would
stomp
his feet

& it
would
rain
sprinkles

PAGE 3 LITTLE BIG EARS
Coptic bound illuminated manuscript
31 x 21 inches [elephant folio]
2011-2020

Below, in the vast network of bunny tunnel, tears temporarily turned off. Lights buzzed above Bees delivering orders to unruly arugula, salty squash, and sloshy sweet 100’s. Bunny tied her ears up and put her best nature to use; tending to bundles of juicy beets, bitter greens, and petite pumpkin, that where arriving by the dozen - all in in need of transplant.
Underground had all things any discerning leveret may want. Lots of plants with berries, soft puppies, playing cards, and a petite mammal named Elephant, who prided himself on being perfectly polished.

…but it wasn’t prepared to host the entire garden. 

Especially if the stormy day, turned into one more.

PAGE 4 LITTLE BIG EARS
Coptic bound illuminated manuscript
31 x 21 inches [elephant folio]
2011-2020

It was not long before fusty muffins began creeping in through a crack in Bun’s burrow door.
Running amok, they turned Bees salty, Tubers soft, and ruined it everywhere (!) underground.


Bunny knew there was only one thing that might do. She grabbed her nasturtium and began to play music. It was a tune so fine, all the little creatures marched sweetly into a dream.
Bunny gingerly plucked them from the ground and tucked them into her knapsack. 

She was following the river to any place else, with Elephant and the Hive Girls beside her.

one
by
one
down
around
her
song
they
dripped…

PAGE 5 LITTLE BIG EARS
Coptic bound illuminated manuscript
31 x 21 inches [elephant folio]
2011-2020

The day wore on from creek to mountain. Mist fell down in cold dense blankets.
Bunny sang, Bees frosted, and Elephant pretended not to be small. Completely oblivious, Bunny hopped along pine needles, kicking leaves, bouncing from rock to rock. A clumsy creature, Bunny soon tripped and found herself among monster rocks…..in the deepest caverns of River. Sleeping Hive Girls, swaths of satin sheet, and walnut shell bee beds flew into the air like a poorly tossed salad.
Landing with skill back in rivers tracks, Bunny, the Bees, and the Birds, watched night fall down on a day darker than any. They were rushing down an inky river, with nothing but a few nuts and each other to hold onto.

PAGE 6 LITTLE BIG EARS
Coptic bound illuminated manuscript
31 x 21 inches [elephant folio]
2011-2020

When night falls over 
&
Bees sleep

it makes bunny dreams buzz blue

PAGE 7 LITTLE BIG EARS
Coptic bound illuminated manuscript
31 x 21 inches [elephant folio]
2011-2020

Bunny had them
safely nestled below the
Master of the Universes lair
by brunch.

Beaver, apples, wild rose,
truffles, unicorn, and bay tree,
glowed in the forest light. 

PAGE 8 LITTLE BIG EARS
Coptic bound illuminated manuscript
31 x 21 inches [elephant folio]
2011-2020

Once
A long time ago……

MouMou found Bunny, lost deep in the wood. A wee bun whipping and itching for carrots, 
she was too little to fend for herself, so he took her home and set to raising her into a proper
 Bunny. 
He was a prickly creature, so it was difficult to teach her how to be a soft rabbit. 
Because of this, Bunny often thought she was not a bunny, but a honey badger. 

If anyone 
would know 
what to do, 
it was MouMou. 

PAGE 9 LITTLE BIG EARS
Coptic bound illuminated manuscript
31 x 21 inches [elephant folio]
2011-2020

His top secret lair is buried inside the largest tree on earth, where it holds a miniature mechanical model of everything in the universe. MouMou is so fond of s’mores that a dragon teakettle toasts marshmallows for him year round. Small squirrels can often be seen weaving silk carpets that depict wild animals of the north, like bears. Fine manuscripts and maps line his wooden walls. MouMou often turns into a pug dog in the privacy of his tree mansion. Bunny is still not sure which he is: pug - or porcupine - or pug with bear spirit - but either way, she loves him all the same…..

PAGE 10 LITTLE BIG EARS
Coptic bound illuminated manuscript
31 x 21 inches [elephant folio]
2011-2020

Home at last she set about

tinkering with MouMou’s new

miniature models and toys.

Anticipating the reason for her visit, he confessed that from the make and model of the crumbs he spied flying by his window, the muffins surely must be coming from his favorite Kitchen, upriver.

He knew that if they didn’t tell Sourdough what he was doingto the river, soon, things would only get worse.

PAGE 11 LITTLE BIG EARS
Coptic bound illuminated manuscript
31 x 21 inches [elephant folio]
2011-2020

In the canopy of MouMou’s tree mansion, from it’s web of buttercup light and drawstring bridge, they searched for a glimpse of earth unfettered with muffin. Sprinkles dotted the universe, miming the stars, stars blinked into focus, as muffins. Bunny had no idea how to traverse the vast greyspace, composed of milk, located somewhere inbetween Here, and There.

PAGE 12 LITTLE BIG EARS
Coptic bound illuminated manuscript
31 x 21 inches [elephant folio]
2011-2020

But that didn’t matter…Away from inbetween they went, Bunny, Bees, MouMou, and Elephant
nestled in a shining peapod, watching stars zoom slowly into focus. Her little nose brushed away flurries of milk as they gently drifted along the current of the milky way. As they began to fall asleep, their dreams were powered by one simple wish: for a home with a few sweet carrots.

PAGE 13 LITTLE BIG EARS
Coptic bound illuminated manuscript
31 x 21 inches [elephant folio]
2011-2020

NIGHT FALLS again
& BUNNY SLEEPS

Stars,
sticky buns,
comets,
& 
cocoa dusted cream
swirled around
Bunny
as MouMou
told Bunny
Sourdough’s 
story

Once there was a little scrap of sourdough starter. He was abandoned at a very early age, tossed aside because he was too little to be a muffin, loaf, or any other identifiable pastry product. When they saw how wee he was, his makers, Pound & Cake, soon decided he was worthless, so the fed him just enough to turn him into the OG Flakey Creamer. Then one day, just like that, his makers disappeared. 
Sourdough found himself all alone in a kitchen so vast that grand central station is but a miniature model. Sacks of oat flour and the special tins to make it in lined the walls along side portraits of his grandfather, the muffin man.

Due to the fact that it was soon to be holiday, Eggs were streaming down the halls in dozens waiting to be painted into pysanky, solid and patterned. He had never had company before, and doubted Hardboiled or Soft, or any other egg for that matter, would want to be his friend. 
That being all that he knew about eggs, he treated them as if they where just an ingredient in his soon to be very grand plan. 
Now that he was all alone and must be his own maker, he decided that what he truly wanted more than anything, was to be sweet - for one must be sweet, to be anything at all but a starter. Then and there he decided he was going to be bigger and better, no matter the cost. 
As Sour’s ambition wore from year to year, Kitchen created more muffins than the stars in the sky. Some say Sour is the greatest baker in the universe. Even though he invented the beignet, he sadly remains the same size: just a smidge shy of a donut hole, living alone in a castle overflowing with failure. Nothing has made him bigger or sweeter. He is probably throwing more test muffins out the window right this very second, having River take them to anywhere else. He is just as naughty as can be, and he never recycles!

PAGE 14 LITTLE BIG EARS
Coptic bound illuminated manuscript
31 x 21 inches [elephant folio]
2011-2020

Each night when 
Sourdough sleeps
He has A DREAM
TO BE
SWEET
Tenacious
Tall
[and] Strong

Sourdough thought strong muffins had more friends. It was pretty scary for Hardboiled & Soft.

PAGE 15
LITTLE BIG EARS

MouMou loved talking.
 Story after story rolled off his sugar coated tongue,raining down upon dreaming Bees, buns, muffins, and monsters. 


But Bunny, having backstroked the 
milky way to the bottom, was paying MouMou no mind.
She sang of carrots, stars melted into milk, and little sneezes puffed bird
song. 
She dreamt that all the monsters of the world were eating sun-dried
rainbow spaghetti, playing bocce ball, and dancing on grey grass.

PAGE 16
LITTLE BIG EARS

NomNom
Nom
Yum
Yum
QuiQui
Qui
WeeeWee
They all mummed

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LITTLE BIG EARS

She dreamt of a world 
where the air tastes of 
strawberries, and her 
prize for winning was 
cloud surfing with kites.

PAGE 18
LITTLE BIG EARS

The Moon
hung low, illuminating a floating Bunny, fast asleep, blowing milk bubbles in the shape of Zs.

PAGE 19
LITTLE BIG EARS

SCARY MOMENT.

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LITTLE BIG EARS

It wasn’t long until Bunny had a Scary Moment. 
She had never left Garden and now she was floating in an ocean of frothy milk.
It was all of a sudden [oh so very], very very, scary!

She dreamt the kites flew away and left her atop a gigantic crest of strawberry milk. It was such a large wave that she could not see any thing but her paws, for she was too afraid to 
look anywhere, but there. 

Elephant watched as the sleeping Bunny teetered into a howl. It was a sound so full, it’s 
darkness dragged her to the floor of the sea. 
Trapped in a bubble of snot, she was drowning in a monsoon so scary, she could think of nothing, but wanting to disappear.

Her scary moment even frightened the milk. 
Waves froze into ice cream, tasting of fake berry.
…it could not have gotten any worse.

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LITTLE BIG EARS

TIME STANDS STILL 


Elephant would not let his best friend drown of sadness in frozen milk even if it was only in a dream.

So he reached across the pink sky and gently petted her with his trunk, hoping to reach her. 
He whispered that he wanted Bunny to drop her Scary Moment like one hot mess. He cooed that darkness was a blanket and that he wanted her to tear the night covers down. Then with one final trunk pat, he reminded her 
that he could only pause time for so long. Each moment time was 
starting all over again, even when it seemed to stand still. 

PAGE 22
LITTLE BIG EARS

His voice floated in and 
out of her like a soft wind as streams of soot roared through her ears from the ground below. 
As usual, time was starting all over again,
second by second. Stuck in a nightmare no more Bunny was fast falling down to earth.
Through monsters of grey smoke & past the sun on it’s rise up, she shot straight down Kitchen’s smoke stack. 

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LITTLE BIG EARS
At the bottom of Kitchen’s smoke stack, sat Kitchen’s super giant soapy sink. Stack upon stack of dirty dish floated in sticky suds. 
Bobbing through flotsam, over 3 burn biscuits & under dumplings of goo, Bee eyes squinted shut in protest.

Bunny had never seen so many dirty 
dishes in one spot. She really 
did not like dish duty herself and thought it a very good sign — …. that just maybe she would get along with this Dough creature, who had a sink bigger than two gardens.

PAGE 24
LITTLE BIG EARS
One by one, Bunny hauled each silk spun girl out of the suds and onto the tile floor. Sooner than she could wing them dry, Hive Girls where pipping from rye to oat, delighting in the roar of pollen dusted cupcakes stepping into line behind them. 
Far in the distance surrounded by sculptures fashioned of frozen cream,appearing barely larger than a sprinkle, was a very salty Sourdough. 
Waving his whisk in horror at the fuzzy creatures invading his Kitchen, he soon became so distressed that his tears turned to rancid balls of butter, pelting everyone with a fat storm of sour.

Cracked eggs stared in awe as Bunny barreled down isles of bear claw and flan with fearless determination.
Unlike everyone else in Kitchen, Bunny was not scared of 
Sour.
At first sight of her, his toothpick arms waved “stop” 
so frantically, that for a brief moment, it seemed to hail flour.

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LITTLE BIG EARS

Bunny had never pet a miniature chef that appeared to be half baked before. Curious, she bent down and scooped him up with a bowl of bunnypaw, lifting the wee muffin up to her ears. She quickly began to understand that not only did Sourdough want her to put him down - right this very second - but that he was furious her fur was touching his flour. Dismayed to have upset the sour puff, she whisked his words off her nose with a sneeze, then carefully set upon returning him to his short stack, next to his favorite butter patty.

Then something very strange happened. Right before Bunny was about to let go of his crumbling hand, Muffin’s shaking turned to sobbing. Then giant sweet maple tears began to pour out, one after another, wetting dough dimples in streams. Soon, he had covered the floor in maple syrup. “Please don’t put me down!” he blubbered at Bunny. He had never been held before, and he did not want the sweet feeling to end.
So there they sat, hand in hand, wondering how a Bunny hug had turned him sweet. Fast friends, they hopped about the kitchen producing excited chatter, Dough showing off his prized carrot confections, Bunny eating limitless carrot cookies. 

Newness was soon gone. Bunny found herself looking at Sourdough in wide eyed concentration. She knew it would be hard, and might hurt him, but she needed to tell her new friend the truth about what he had done to the world. She took one last sip of carrot cream, sat down, and began to tell him her story: She described her Garden lush with corn that smelled only of honey. Then she told him of the muffins, pie-tins, mixers, and beaters, that had buried it. Sourdough was filled with remorse as he watched tears dot her velveteen fur. He had not once ventured into the world outside Kitchen’s walls…but he had ruined it all the same.

PAGE 29
LITTLE BIG EARS

Years of experimental baking going to out the window to anywhere else, had clearly gone s somewhere…
Littering the world with sprinkles and frosting the ocean with tin, Sourdough’s obsession had made a mess. Fruitcakes, half baked muffins, macaroons, beaters, and whisks, dotted the sea of swans like one green & moldy sugar dusted cookie that no one wanted to see. 

Moored on a floating its-it amongst hardboiled and soft eggs, Bunny and Sour watched with dismay as Kitchen, now with a mind of it’s own, continued to spout waste into the sea. 

Sourdough knew that he was responsible for having ruined Here, There, and possibly Everywhere; that it was an accident, did not matter. He looked at the soft and sad little Bunny and promised to do everything that he could to make it right. Could he, a scrap, who had become the grandest maker, invent the way to the giant Clean Up too? He lifted his salty self up to the sun and certainly hoped so. 
He would do anything for his new bestie Bunny.

Brown egg, white egg, muffin, mammal and 
life saving donut raft they were all in this mess together.

fin
droplet
shell
paw
trunk 
& 
tiny hands
linked together in a chain so strong even the sea could not tear them apart… 

PAGE 31
LITTLE BIG EARS

The beginning of an end is just another beginning ..

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LITTLE BIG EARS

.. of many sweet dreams to come.

PAGE 2 LITTLE BIG EARS
Coptic bound illuminated manuscript
31 x 21 inches [elephant folio]
2011-2020