I recently saw a video on YouTube, where I spend way too much time. The Cat with Hands is a short film directed by Robert Morgan. It was such a well-done short story – I got all inspired and painted my own imagined cat with hands.
The piece is up for sale at eBay if you’re interested and otherwise – check out this video! You’ll LOVE it! And support the maker and share it with your friends 🙂
About this artwork
This is a 2.5 x 4.5-inch wood board painted with a long neck siamese on it using acrylics.
Price is : $20+ $3 shipping inside the USA.
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Shipping is $3 inside the United States and most destinations outside the USA run around $9. Just write me before you buy if you live outside the US and I’ll give you a quote for shipping.
The Story
I was owned by a very special Siamese. Well, she wasn’t really Siamese. She was actually half-Himalayan (he was a show cat no less!) and half little-black-alley-cat that no one loved and I could never catch, she was way too feral. She did decide to crawl onto my downstairs neighbor’s porch one April 15th morning and have her kittens.
That was the day I decided to add a cat to the family.
Her name was Timmy. Pronounced : TIMMMMAAAAAAHHHHH.
My neighbor called me down when the kittens were 3-days old because one kitten seemed to really have issues. She acted like her neck was broken, she couldn’t manage to nurse due to shaking, and as of that morning, Momma Cat was now refusing to let her even try to nurse.
So, I scooped her up and we went to the vet to find out what to do for this little furry girl.
The vet told me that we’d have to wait to know for sure, but she’d seen it enough to guess cerebellar hypoplasia. Basically, it’s a neurological disorder that happens. It can affect motor skills from just a little to a lot. I was given a tiny bottle and kitten formula and proceeded to do a whole lotta kitten feeding.
Even though I knew who Timmy’s father was and definitely who her mother was (there was a big to-do in my apartment complex when the MommaCat tore the screen and got into the apartment where the people that owned the Himalayan show cat lived. They were angry this little cat got into their apartment and gave their cat fleas.
The vet insisted she was a Seal Point Siamese when Timmy was 4-months old and I was getting the paperwork to get Timmy on a plane for a move to Ohio from Texas. She still couldn’t hold her head up well and it mostly flopped off to one side, and she did this weird scoot to get around. But she was eating, playing, and doing a lot of regular kitten things. I really liked my vet. She was knowledgeable, always available and went above and beyond. But she said something that really bugged me about Timmy.
She told me that Timmy probably wouldn’t live past 2-3 years old.
Like Timmy had an expiration date I couldn’t see or something. I decided to ignore it and give her the best life she could have.
Timmy went on to live another 8 years. She had trouble with her legs randomly giving out, but overall her health was good. Her final year was rough, she had dementia. That was crazy. She would only stay in the upstairs kitchen and 7 years before we had a little box up there. It has been in the basement for years for the other cats, but Timmy would go to the corner where the litter box once was, step over imaginary sides and leave a little poop in the corner, and even go to the trouble to “cover it up” by pawing air around her creation. She would go down to the basement to pee though (Is that TMI?).
The day she left the upstairs kitchen and walked to the back door, I knew it was the day she was leaving us. It was on a Sunday (Mother’s Day actually), and I had a call into the vet but before he called back, she just laid down and went peacefully. I buried her in the flower garden and planted a ton of marigolds. She loved to sit and smell them when I brought them in.
I still like to paint Timmy, she definitely left a pawprint on my heart.
This piece is about me and my never ending struggle to not bring in another cat adoption.
I am a huge believer in adopt don’t shop and I like to adopt special needs cats. I’m at home painting most days, our life is calm, and I enjoy giving kitties a forever home.
Since I am an artist – it can be tight financially, so I try to be very real about how much I can handle. But I still have a pang of guilt for not giving every single kitty or dog a home.
I do try to sponsor adoptions when I have a good month.
It’s a great way to help an animal get adopted – you pay part of even all of the fee so all someone has to do is provide a good home.
All the cats in this painting have overbites because my black cat Noodle has an overbite and I think it makes her adorable.
Painting: Acrylic Gouache, Ink, Charcoal, and Watercolor
Size: 7 H x 5 W x 0.3 in
I was chatting with some folks and we were talking about our first crushes. I remember mine vividly. I was 5 years old and NO ONE could tell that I was not marrying Vincent Price. I wanted a spooky husband damnit. And Vincent and I were going to live happily in the hills in our blue house with a cat in every window.
This is a painting I’ve wanted to do for years but just never did – glad it is finally out of my brain and onto paper. Now this original can be on your walls!
Contact me if you’d like to purchase – giclee prints are available for $25 each.
Some cats have a blue eye and a green eye. I’ve been a huge supporter of the Humane Society over the years. The one here in Toledo is one of the oldest no-kill shelters. I haven’t been a foster since I moved here, but definitely I want to get involved with that again. So many dogs and cats and so many need homes – it’s nice to be able to spring them from a cage until they get adopted. 🙂
This painting was from a phrase a vet told me regarding a cat I brought in for a look over. The cat had a green eye and a blue eye. The vet told me the cat was probably deaf on the side with the blue eye and proceeded to test for it – sure enough the kitty was deaf on that side, not that it slowed her down one bit.
This is an ACEO acrylic painting – contact me if you’d like to own it.
o
