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Back in the late 1980's, I lived on Coventry Road in Kensington, California, a hillside town just to the north of Berkeley. A scraggly black and white cat started visiting regularly. She was obviously hungry, so I started putting food out for her and named her "Raisin." My two house cats were not particularly happy about this arrangement, but we all managed to peacefully coexist. I did a series of four small black and white linocuts called Coventry Cats. The print Raisin won a Merit Award in the show Cats Wonderful Cats at the Foster City Museum Gallery in Foster City, California in 1994. Beginning in 1996, I assisted artist Lowell Herrero. He taught me a thing or two about color and about painting cats (and cows!) in the four years that I worked with him. A few years back we settled into an old farmhouse in California's Central Valley. Little Pal, our brown tabby cat, did her best to keep away the field mice. Chuck was our handsome McNab, a breed descended from the great sheep dogs of Ukiah rancher Alexander McNab. Chuck loved eating cookies even more than chasing the cat or barking at jack rabbits in the peach orchard. Little Pal and Chuck have lived their days and are gone. Most of the orchards have been removed to make way for houses and roads. The new residents at the homestead are a couple of adopted strays: a big blue-eyed white cat named Luciano, and Carmella, a beautiful long-haired calico. Kiley, a gentle Queensland mix, and Meg, a little Border Collie, have just moved in, and we think they're going to like it here.
Roxane Gilbert |
