PiCassieO: Adventures in Interspecies Art by:Beth Stafford

"PiCassieO": Adventures in Interspecies Art

Artists are known for looking at the world in unique ways, often choosing as subject matter what would normally be overlooked or not seen as "art". In my case, it was my dog's window markings that triggered an "aha" moment which was the start of the largest body of work I've produced in my 30-year career as a painter. This "interspecies" collaboration has produced dozens of wildly expressionistic, brilliantly colorful abstracts that I sign as "PiCassieO". My dog's name is Cassie; doing yet another play on Picasso was irresistible! I figured Picasso could represent me, the human half of the team, with Cassie in her usual spot in the center of everything.

I confess that in the beginning I was like most people looking at non-representational art, searching in Cassie's marks for recognizable symbols - like looking for cloud pictures. Some of the early ones are a little embarrassing now, but gradually I came to appreciate the beauty of the "brushwork" for itself and not for what it might seem to represent. I have come to regard my enthusiastic and totally uninhibited dog as my artistic alter ego - the side that wants to cut loose and be spontaneous instead of meticulously planning and drawing and painting in "high definition". That gets really old after a while, believe me. Cassie graciously lets me use her art as the basis for my own take on it. With the help of a digital camera, photo shop software, tablet and stylus, and a really good printing set-up, I am now producing art that I'm proud to claim, and am having incredible fun making it! We probably have the "dirtiest" windows around - but there are such treasures to be discovered there.

My canine partner and I have a blog (http://www.airedale-art.blogspot.com ) where I post the latest works, and also opened an online store (http://www.cafepress.com/airedale_art ) where I've adapted some of our art for a number of items (including dog bowls!). Both the blog and the store are titled "PiCassieO: Art With Love From Cassie And Beth". That says it all.

About the author

The author of this article, Beth Stafford, is an award-winning professional artist who, before her adventures as PiCassieO, was better known for her hard-edge abstracts of buildings. Her life is measured in "dog years" (currently the "Cassie Years"). She may be reached at beth(at)bethstafford.com.

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