Talk about a bummer when your own dog is that harsh a critic. I've lived much of my life with dogs, but I can count, on one hand, the number of times I've legitimately used that phrase.
Milo is the most primal of puppies, and his skill for disassembly is a wonder to behold; when properly directed. A combination of boredom and the scent of leather was too hard for him to resist in this case. Upsetting circumstances, but it'd be foolish to take this incident as some cosmic commentary on my efforts as an artist. Still, such things can be an attractive consideration.
It's something I believe all creatives must face at times. Adversity is everywhere and there are plenty of reasons NOT to pursue creative endeavors; on occasion those reasons can be self-created. I've found it's important to be aware of that potential.
When one has a pet, these things happen, you can't hold a grudge. Still; it was a special gift and its loss revealed attachments. So those pages were put in a zip lock bag and lost to the chaos of the art room. There was intermittent talk of what to do with that project, then in early in April that bag resurfaced. The Ms. and I discussed re-binding the book, creating new covers for it. I imagined using epoxy resin and those shreds of paper to create hard clear covers for the book. But, before I could, Milo discovered those bagged pages and decided he wasn't done.
Whether it was boredom, mischief or the lingering sent of leather, who can say. Maybe he really didn't like what I was working on in those pages. In any case, for some pages, the result was nearly confetti.
I was left disheartened about that project. That is, until random chance and greater adversity put that all into perspective. |