Fulfilling the Measure of Your Creation -- and Then Some

My last post left me a bit sad, reflecting on the loss of my cat, the loss of my grandpa and the loss of opportunities that time won't give back.

Then, out of the blue, the image from a book popped into my head and I went on the hunt in the bookshelves that are placed in many rooms throughout my house (as well as in book bins under beds and stacks in corners and populating everywhere else throughout my house like breeding bunnies) to find that book.  It has been over a decade since I pulled it out, but it came to me in a flash of inspiration as just what I needed to put some joy in my heart and a laugh in my throat.

I found it tucked away on a shelf, spine not even facing out.  All I had to do was look at the cover, and I was already smiling -- no, more like grinning.  Here it is:

The truly fabulous thing is that this cat on the cover looks JUST like my Minino, and that's what first drew my attention to Why Cats Paint  when browsing the Barnes & Noble shelves so many years ago (my copy was published in 1995, but I see that the book was republished in 2006).  Then when I flipped through the pages of the book, I was actually laughing out loud and simply had to have the book.  For me, the effect is just as joyful today as it was back when I discovered the book in the mid-1990s. I rarely "lol" as they say, but this book makes me "lol."

Take the description of "Bootsie," one of the feline painters featured in the book.  Here is his photograph, so you can properly visualize him while you read the description of his style (notice the paint on his furry paws):

Bootsie is a Trans-Expressionist who "uses a vigorous, sometimes aggressive style to explore his inner feelings and perceptions."

"To watch him paint is pure delight.  As soon as the easel is put up on the lawn and the paints are laid out next to it, any hint of feline disdain, any trace of detached hauteur, vanishes completely.  He almost pounces on the paint as if he must trap its fleeting vibrance before it escapes, and the moment it is on his paw he springs up to apply it.  Consideration appears minimized, while concentration is intense and the strokes are vigorously rhythmical."

Bootsie's owner, though, described him as "liking to leap about and put different colors all over the place without much caring how he does it."

And here is the photo of Bootsie that makes my heart happy:

Bootsie in full flight during painting of Hands Up!  Mr. Rooster, which sold for $15,000.  Note the rough sketch he made for this work on the back of the canvas.

Ha!  Doesn't just looking at the photo make you want to make something more of your life?!  As Thoreau put it, to "live deep and suck out all the marrow of life"?  (Thoreau, Walden, "Where I Lived and What I Lived For.")  Now, that Bootsie is a creature who is magnifying his allotment (even granting that this Why Cats Paint  is pure crazy nonsense)!  (I must also tell you, as an aside, that the same authors have published Why Paint Cats and Dancing With Cats.  I have not reviewed either one, but they appear to take crazy to a new level.)

And to close, I just have to share Bootsie's Cocking for Cockatoos, 1993, "in which a long-nosed green dog attempts to urinate (yellow), on a small flock of low-flying cockatoos (white)."

Are you smiling?  What makes you feel as alive as Bootsie twirling through the air, paint dripping from paws, trapping the "fleeting vibrance" before it escapes?  Have a great day!