Furry Friends – Mike in Oly – Remembering Our Family Pets Thru Art

We’ll start with this wonderful painting of our first two cats, Chewie (dilute tortie) and Tuck (B&W tuxie). Chewie was my husband’s cat. He had rescued her from a dorm when he left college not long before we got together. She was a crazy little thing. All floof and nonsense. She acted more like a dog than a cat and would follow us everywhere, running all about chirping and gurbleing. She had a full range of sounds and not one of them was a classic meow. She was loaded with personality, very people oriented, and was a master of sneaking into your lap to curl up without you even noticing it was happening. She lived to be 19, even dealing with kidney failure for the last six years of her life. There will never be another like her. So special.

Tuck was my first kitty. We got him when Chewie was about a year and half old. A friend had rescued a mother cat and her newborns and passed him on to me when he was just 7 weeks old. At the time I was young, new to cats other than the farm cats I grew up with, and did not know this was too soon to leave momma. He was so tiny and adorable, and he followed Chewie everywhere, much to her displeasure. However within a year they were curling up together for naps and he remained devoted to her. We lost him at age nine when he disappeared into the night. We lived in the country, and it had been a very long and hot day. We got home late and I let them out of the sweltering house to cool off for a bit. Somehow he got out of the fenced back yard and did not come in that night. I never saw him again. I searched for him for days while the hot winds blew unrelentingly. It just broke me and I was a wreck for months after. I hope he found his way to another farmhouse and was taken in and had a good life. But I’ll never know.

My friend Sharon in WI created this painting for me called ‘The Flower Arrangers’. 2004, 24×36, acrylic on canvas. The vase is one of mine and the flowers were from my garden. I love her folksy impressionist style. I treasure this painting and have it hung prominently so they are always with us in spirit.

Miss Gracie was our miracle baby. She and her sister Sapphy were dumped near the home of an elderly friend of mine on the edge of Olympia. They were living in his shed, and after Sapphy was taken by a predator he asked if I would take Gracie to prevent her from vanishing too. She was such a cute little half-feral muffin that I agreed. She was only about 5 months old, but she moved in and told everyone she was the boss. We all believed her. She was a Norwegian forest cat and had the thickest, most dense coat I have ever seen on a cat. It was always getting matted and she spent many hours at the groomers getting cleaned up each year. Cole’s Steve reminds me very much of her, tho he seems much more laid back. She and Chewie never did get along until many years later after the last of our boys had passed away. We always kept an eye on her to stop any bullying behavior. But she always got along with the boys, once they knew she was in charge.

In 2005 we were preparing to move out of that house while our new one was being built in the country. It was May 1st, the first beautiful, warm sunny day of the year, and everyone in the neighborhood was out doing yard work and enjoying the weather after a long, gloomy, wet spring. She didn’t show up for dinner that night. She was not known for roaming so I dropped flyers at all the homes around us asking folks to check their sheds and garages to see if she had been stuck in one. She was always poking into dark space hunting for mice. Sent flyers to all the vets, shelters and rescue orgs in the area. I figured she would turn up, but weeks went by and still no sign of her. Then, on our last night in the house as I was getting ready for bed I heard a meow at the back door. After 30 days Gracie was home! A miracle! She was skin and bones. And we were so happy to see her.

Gracie was not people oriented. She was very independent, tho she did like a brief lap snuggle and some pets on occasion, but it never lasted for long. I spent years picking her up for brief periods to get her used to being handled – she complained loudly the whole time. But over time she would grudgingly let me hold her for longer and longer as she new it was unavoidable. Thankfully for vets and groomers, she would be completely placid and allow them to do whatever was needed. She did not grant us the same courtesy and we had to always watch for those claws to come out. But she loved us in her way. She was a great huntress and kept the rodents under control at our country home. She even got moles for me in the garden. Thankfully she was not good with birds and only a few of them came into her grasp over the years, but there was a steady stream of mice, voles and other small mammals left for us to clean up. Once she even brought a bunny into the house. She lived to be 10 years old and was lost to pancreatic cancer. We said goodbye to her on May 30th, 2015, ten years to the day after the miracle of her return.

This artwork is one of my own photos of her. It was taken as the early spring sunshine streamed into the house and I love the light and color from that old 70s crushed velvet couch. It complimented her well. 13×16, photo on canvas. I told the lady at the frame shop I wanted the feel of an old master as I always thought the picture looked like an oil painting. I said I wanted the mood to be that of something that had been hanging in an old English manor house for a century or more, and she really came thru. The dark wood and old gold trim is so perfect.

When we moved out of our house in town we rented a home in a neighborhood on a peninsula out in the county for six months while our new place was being built. It was a nice enough neighborhood, but the house next door had issues. They were not good people and had obviously neglected pets and children. I will not share the horrors we witnessed. Authorities were involved while we were there. We befriended a little Siamese kitten and his ginger tabby brother during our brief stay and when we were ready to go we knew we couldn’t leave them behind to continue to be neglected. We named the Siamese one Peter Pansy (because of his pansy-flower face pattern) and adopted him and a friend took his brother George in.

Petey grew to be one of the sweetest, most loving little cats I have ever known, and he had the most beautiful blue eyes. We had him for five years. As he got older he had started resenting us making for him stay indoors overnight and started making his displeasure known by destroying expensive household and personal items. After weeks of it we finally caved in and let him do as he wished. I knew it was going to end badly and it did when he vanished into the night not long after. But that was Petey’s way. He came to us on his terms and he left on his terms. Shortly after this we lost our country home to the recession and moved back to town.

The painting was done by an artist in South Carolina that I met online in a gardening group. She was so kind to do this for me for free. Wouldn’t even take money for the postage. She painted it from a photo of mine and I think it turned out beautifully. It captures him perfectly. 15×19, watercolor on paper. I chose the framing myself. The black is a bamboo pattern with a green inner border and gold inside that. The colors compliment the painting perfectly.

in 2015 we had said goodbye to Chewie and Gracie, the last of our original set of kitties, and the house was feeling very empty. We contacted a local cat rescue and arranged to meet an eight year old brother and sister pair they had dubbed Sue Purr and Dan Dee (ugh!). They had lost their previous owner and had been kicked out of their house by the heirs and were living under the porch. A kind neighbor rescued them and got them to the shelter. We liked them immediately and brought them home where we renamed them Dandy and Pearl. They never acted like a bonded pair and pretty much just ignored each other, but they were both friendly and loving with us, tho they absolutely hated to be picked up. We lost Dandy to cancer just a year and half later. He was such a sweet boy and loved treats and lounging about in the sunshine. I miss him a lot.

The digital art was done by my friend Deb who lives in CT. She asked to use my photos of Dandy and Pearl to make some art which she then sold on demand as cards and bags and such to raise money for her local shelter. I had a print made of them and framed in simple white. 16×16 digital art on heavy paper. She even included some of my irises.

Pearl is such a character. She’s a petite little tuxie with a big personality. She is very much a bossy little thing and demands we perform as staff for her. She is quite sweet when she wants to be but has a short fuse on some issues. She hates to be picked up, loves a lap but does not want to be petted and will leave if you do so. She likes belly rubs on the warm cement for a brief time and lets you know when it is up with claws and teeth. She does however love to be petted as she eats her kibble and demands I sit on the kitchen floor and comply multiple times a day. She knows exactly when food time is and makes a pest of herself if the staff is not timely with it, and she loves to snuggle between our legs at night. Best of all she is a natural model and poses so perfectly for me all the time. I have saved over 700 photos of her at this point.

I have a matching print of Pearl from Deb, but I also have this amazing creation done by our friend, a (formerly) local artist,  Julie. She really liked one of my photos of Pearl on her back while playing and turned it into this space fantasy for me. It is so whimsical and fun. 14×17, watercolor, gouache and pencil on paper. This piece makes me so happy every time I look at it.

After we lost Dandy we needed to fill that hole he had left and off we went, back to the shelter where we met the amazing Mr. Oliver. This is the first pet we had where we kept the name he came with. It just fit. Oliver was around 8 years old and such a character. Solid black, and silky but for a few white hairs tufted on his chest. He was very people – and food! – oriented. He had a raspy voice and loved to sit on my desk and scream for treats. He was incredibly loving and always wanted to be petted and loved on. We were slowly working on his weight issues. He was a very laid back boy and was amenable to whatever we wanted him to do. Sadly a year later he slipped a disk in his back and could not stand or walk. Because he was very overweight, the vets told us there was no hope of a recovery so we had to say goodbye. We were incredibly attached to him already and it was a very hard loss for us. He was amazing and we miss him every day. I was delighted his photo in his little lumberjack hat was made into a BJ postcard and that everyone loved it.

The painting is again done by our friend Julie from a photo of mine. Again in a space fantasy theme with Oliver piloting his little space ship to explore a new planet.  17×21, watercolor, gouache and pencil on paper. Whimsical and fun and so fitting for this dear boy.

After Oliver’s passing we went back to the shelter again and checked out some of the kitties available. I had my eye on a ginger boy named Hank, but he was being introduced to another family, so we went to another room to meet and greet. The lady we were working with showed us a kitty she said was very shy, did not like strangers, but loved a lap. He is a beautiful mackerel tabby covered in spots and stripes with a brindle coat and a white belly and legs. His previous owner had reluctantly given him up when he was forced to move back to his parents house and they would not allow the cat to stay. Daniel sat down next to his cage and within short order Marley came out and crawled right up on his lap for pets. I knew at that point I would not be getting to meet Hank, and Marley was quickly adopted and came home with us. He was so very shy and it took some time for him to be comfortable but he settled in and has become the sweetest, most loving boy. We got the excess weight off him and strengthened his muscles that had atrophied from so long at the shelter.

The portrait of him was, again, done by our friend Julie. She did commissions for Xmas ornaments for her friends and family every year and made this one of Marley for us. It is perfect. 3×4, acrylic on wood. I love it and keep it out all year long.

I hope you enjoyed hearing about our pets and seeing the beautiful artwork of them created for us. I have two others I did not include as I have yet to get artwork of them. My ginger boy Junebug, aka Bugsy. He was a nut! As well as that of a stray we cared for for awhile we called Frankie Meezer. He and Dandy were the best of friends. I’ll tell their stories another day.