Cat Nip

As I look out my window the gray has settled in and it makes me think that rain might be on the way. Now in Oregon that isn't such big news, rain comes in September or October and lasts until May or June. But I come from Texas where if you get rain you rush inside and grab the kiddies cause they may never see it again.

My pals back in Dallas tell me that they had another summer. Again for Oregon guys that isn't big deal but in Texas we refer to it as the “Five Month of Misery”.

The sun peeks out and stays and the temp soars and stays and you cook and cook and tan and cook and if you aren't a sun person who loves to get out and get nekkid and bake it is just an ordeal.

I knew it was time for us to leave Texas when we had eighty-one days of hundred degree plus weather and it wasn't a record.

So I like the fact that in Oregon there are cool days and cold days but there are no hundred degree days so long as you stay on the coast or don't venture inland until after the first frost.

I was told when we first got here that, “You won't stay past the first winter. The rains will drive you back to where you came from.”

Five winters later I'm still here and lovin' it.

But when the Gray comes it can be hard to find something to paint. See painter type people like color and one of the things which you won't find in the Gray is color.

Sure we have just as many turned leaves as New England but what we don't have is the cool autumn sun or early snows to show them off. And it can be tough to drag all of the equipment out into the wilds to paint when in five minutes the rains come and you have to pack it all up and run back inside.

So what do you do when the days get short and the nights get long, when the moon is full and there are things going bump in the night?

You paint cats.

Yes, I know they aren't very good about holding still, but there are challenges in all sorts of subjects and you just have to adapt.

Besides, next to Elvira and pumpkins there is nothing which says Halloween so much as a cat.

Okay witches do, but there are problems there too. Witches can be very shy about posing. I guess if Kim Kardashian was a witch instead of the other word which sounds so much like it you could get her to do the red carpet thing for witches, but she isn't. She's far too busy molesting NBA players and has not time for silly artists who just want to capture her picture when all they have to do is go buy the latest People magazine and they'll have a dozen new ones there for the taking.

Yes, for some you could watch her Adult Entertainment tape in which you get to see just how...you get to see a whole bunch and not much of it is worthy of immortalizing in art. Okay, none of it but if you stick to that you'll have no excuse when the kids catch you watching it on the Internet.

Anyway, cats are much more fun than Kim and they do all sorts of silly things and they will do it for you when the sun isn't shinning and they do it all the time and they do it for free and free is good so why not paint cats?

I mean dogs have gotten the lion's share of art exposure, there’s' the poker playing dogs, the Weimaraner dogs and all sorts of dogs from Asta to Rin Tin Tin have made movies, so where are the cats?

Okay in fairness I have to add a disclaimer, I have a squalmolish of cats. That's bigger than a pride and smaller than a horde. I have gray cats, orange cats, although the vet folks say they are red, I have black and white tuxedo cats and silky Siamese cats, black cats and tiger-striped cats. I have fat cats, tiny cats, fierce cats, mean cats and adorable cats and they all provide endless hours of silliness and fun.

And I do shoot them when ever I can take a minute out from doing all of the other things which life requires of me and of course when I can hold the camera still. They make me laugh a lot you see and that means not so steady hands for holding a camera.

Didja ever wonder why we have so many self-portraits of artists? The model worked cheap. I've mentioned this before but it is a fact that artists paint whatever they can get cheap and available. You think all of those Impressionist artists painted dancers and Can-Can girls, hookers and doxies cause they thought they were hot stuff? Not a chance. They painted them cause they'd do it and do it for nearly free, a shot of Absinthe, a few coppers, maybe a meal and they were ready to pose for hours.

Try that with a cat. You can't talk them into posing for a plate of tuna. They'll turn their little pink noses up and walk off. That's why cats didn't become a subject for fine art until the camera got fast and inexpensive. You ain't gonna get a cat to devote half an hour in a steel clamp to get a grainy daguerreotype. No sir, they'll give you a dozen good poses and then they are off to do important things. Naps.

That's right cats prioritize naps. That's why they have nine lives and don't need blood thinners and heart meds. In fact it is a well documented fact that simply petting a cat can lower your blood pressure.

But it's a wonderful thing for artists that cats like naps. Its one of the few times they slow down long enough for you to get a great image. Let sleeping dogs lie and go take a picture of sleeping cats.

You can never have enough stock images with a seasonal connection. There are hundreds of cat lovers out there just waiting for your pictures to be put on a calendar, mug, place mat, mouse pad or key ring. And that is just what you can do after you win the top prize at the art show with that thirty by thirty canvas.

So find your camera and start collecting. There are sleeping cats just waiting to be captured and when the Gray finally settles in and you can't go out and play, you'll be glad to have furry friend or two to play across you canvas.