My cat hates my art

Emergence, Copyright © 2008 by Sandra Reid

If you have ever owned a Siamese cat you will know that they are highly intelligent, love companionship and that they own you, rather than you owning them. If they cannot do what they want when they want then you are subjected to very vocal howls of protest.

My cat is always with me when I create my art and has a daily routine where he comes in jumps up on my knee, fidgets around, sleeps for a short while and then jumps down to his beanbag where he sleeps for the remainder of the time.

At the time I was working on Emergence, I had recently acquired a new computer. As I had no room for it in my study it was set up on the dining room table which allowed my cat to sit beside me on a dining room chair while I worked away. Unfortunately he was not happy with the lack of attention and decided to seek revenge. Every time I moved the mouse I would be either swiped with a paw or chomped. A firm No! was of no use, he was determined.

In fact, he was so determined to disrupt my work that he ended up plonking himself smack bang between the keyboard and computer screen. By this time he was in a very bad mood and I again was chomped and swiped at. My attempts to try and move him were met with grumpy howls of protest along with further attempts to bite and claw me. It was futile to try and remove him so I ended up walking away and doing something else. This was not the the only occasion he behaved like this when I was working on this artwork.

Emergence, really is a pseudonym as this artwork should have been called, "My cat hates my art" because every time I look at it I am reminded of how much of a drama it was to work on. I created this artwork to look like the shell shape was emerging from within the artwork, hence the name Emergence.

It is probably just as well I do not paint as I probably would have had a piece of art adorned with paw prints and a dash of fur by now!

As for the cat, he is fairly old and feeling the cold of our winter so has a new trick which is to sit on the top of the computer tower case and glare at me when he is grumpy. Overall, though he is a pretty good companion.

Take the fractal art tour:

• Rings of Gold