Art in Honor

It has been well over a month since I last made a post here. One primary reason for my absence is that my beloved 21-year-old cat fell ill, and after a two-week battle I ultimately had to say goodbye to her following a diagnosis of heart failure and widespread cancer.

I had previously shared some drawings I created of her, and here is one of them again:

Her name was Rosie. She was one tough cookie of a cat. She was a true trooper and went through a lot during her 21 years, including an emergency eye removal surgery just this past January.

I have always been a huge animal lover, and my sweet 21-year-old cat was a big influence on that trait of mine. I'll age myself here by divulging that my family acquired this cat of mine when she was just 8 weeks old and I was just 4 years old. I grew up with her. I miss her immensely.

In her honor, I have set up a memorial corner for her at my house. My memorial for her includes a beautiful red rose (a fake one, admittedly, so that it will last forever) and none other than a piece of mixed media art that I created especially for her:

A rose and artwork to honor my sweet cat Rosie.

Creating this piece of art for my Rosie was one of the main ways I coped immediately following her passing. Art in itself brings me a great deal of comfort, and so creating art in honor of my loyal companion of 21 years was very consoling to me during that difficult time.

I don't believe I had ever truly appreciated the full power of art until I created this piece for Rosie. It all came together for me in an artistically healing process, and creating it helped me to feel and stay close to Rosie. I chose the purple and pink color scheme for a reason - my favorite color is purple and so (as a result of my selections) many of Rosie's favorite blankets were purple, and I always loved the adorable pink color of her paw pads and nose. Even the Distress Ink I applied was in direct honor of Rosie - she was a beautiful calico cat, and so I used my Black Soot, Vintage Photo, and Antique Linen Distress Inks to imitate a calico color scheme with the border and background. What's more, the white ribbon I attached to the top of the art piece was one with which Rosie used to play often.

And, of course, I wrote a message upon Rosie's art piece that rings very true for me:

Cats leave paw prints on our hearts.