ANN AGEE
QUIRKY CHICKEN SLAUGHTER

A Chicken Slaughter would not seem like a beautiful subject for a group of porcelain figures, but Ann Agee and her husband Fabio saw things differently. 

Agee already loved taking everyday moments and turning them into sculptures, but memories of helping her neighbors at their annual event became her true inspiration for this work. 

The artist lived next door to chicken farmers. Every year, when the time came for the big slaughter, Ann and Fabio would lend a hand, helping their neighbors with the laborious task. It was a strange tradition—unseen by most folks, maybe even unspoken—but it was something that Ann had learned to appreciate.

This year, a photographer had been hired to document the event. Ann watched as the photographer moved about the barn, snapping photos of the chickens, the workers, the sharp knives, the rushing water, and the methodical process.

 It was here that Agee saw the whole scene through a new lens. She had always loved those antique European porcelain figurines, those delicate scenes of aristocrats in powdered wigs, sipping tea, or strolling through manicured gardens. But what if, just for once, she could take that porcelain tradition and inject it with something real, something personal, something that reflected the lives of regular people—the workers, the laborers, the unsung heroes of the everyday?

The scene she created in porcelain would turn out to be a stunning project. It featured five stands, each one carefully sculpted to represent a key player in the process. There was the photographer, whose camera captured it all, standing off to the side with a poised elegance that felt strangely out of place in such a gritty setting. Next to him stood another sculpture of Ann and Fabio, both sculpted with their sleeves rolled up, their faces set in concentration as they helped pluck the feathers off a chicken. Then there were also Agee’s two neighbors, pulling feathers off of their own upside-down chicken. In the last two sculptures, two individuals were captured mid-action—the eviscerator, whose hands worked swiftly to remove the animal’s guts, and the rinser, who stood right of the eviscerator with a hose (you can imagine the rest). 

And so, the chicken slaughter was now forever remembered in artistic porcelain; a reminder that art could be found in the unlikeliest of places. Ann and Fabio Agee, standing side by side in that delicate scene, had given the world a new lens through which to view the ordinary. They had taken labor and made it celebratory, an artwork that would stand the test of time, just like the porcelain figurines of the past.