Cassie, one of my favorite dog artists passed away on September 22, 2012. She was North Carolina artist Beth Stafford’s 13-year-old Airedale. She was also Beth’s collaborator, art teacher, and non-traditional muse. Together, Cassie and Beth made paintings and digital artworks, sold under the name PicassieO, inspired by Cassie’s nose smudges on Beth’s windows.
In those smudges Beth, who is an accomplished artist on her own, saw Cassie’s passion for life, her love of squirrels, deer, birds, and scents of the seasons. And she also saw an avenue to experiment with the abstract and the organic in ways that are, in my opinion, reminiscent of Georgia O’Keeffe, Matisse, Jackson Pollack, and the duo’s namesake, Picasso. I wanted to share some of my favorite PicassieOs with you and check in with Beth to send her my condolences.
Moira McLaughlin: I was so sad to hear of Cassie’s passing. I have been a fan of you both since I wrote about PicassieO in 2008. I wanted to celebrate Cassie’s life and share your story with new Dog Art Today readers, many of whom have their own non-traditional muses sharing studio space with them. How did you Cassie come into your life?
Beth Stafford: I found her through the old Mid-Atlantic Airedale Rescue. Her owners divorced and gave her up. She was 16 months old when I adopted her on September 6, 2000. She was a wild child until she finally settled down as much as an Airedale can. We were able to celebrate her twelfth “Gotcha Day” last month. We had a dozen great years together, but it’s still too short.
MM: How long after you adopted her did you begin collaborating?
BS: I didn’t recognize her talent until six years after I adopted her. She had been marking the windows for years before my “aha” moment. It happened one day when I was taking a break upstairs and looked at my west windows which are behind the couch where Cassie liked to perch to see what was happening outside. The sun was beaming in and hit the marks just right. I was really blown away by the beauty and freedom of her “brushwork”. I grabbed my camera and photographed away. Then I started playing with the pictures in Photoshop Elements, filtering and coloring until I liked the results. At first that’s all I did.
MM: Were you struggling with your own art, looking for inspiration at the time?
BS: Yes. My style for 20 years was very precise, hard-edged, and mostly involved architectural subjects. I was really good at it, but I was getting bored. I had been experimenting with different mediums and subject matter for several years, but I found it challenging to turn loose my inhibitions until Cassie set me free. She was an expressionist master! Using her totally uninhibited reactions to life around us as a starting point, I was able to concentrate on my love of color and composition and produce the wild art that I am doing as PiCassieO, and I was able to honor my mentor by putting her in the center of the name of another fun artist.
MM: Did your collaboration with Cassie represent a creative breakthrough?
BS: Most definitely.
MM: Did you put your own ideas on hold or ever second guess working with Cassie?
BS: Her “ideas” were the starting point for my new art. At first I stuck to what she had done and just cropped and altered the photos. Then, a few years later, I got a stylus and began to draw on the marks, which was a big change in the look. Lately I have been outlining her strokes and lifting them by cutting and pasting into new files. Then I cut and paste other elements of the photo and do a virtual collage with all of it. An example is Matisse Collage (see below). That’s what I was doing when Cassie got sick, so I haven’t done many of them. Meanwhile, I was branching out into painting again, using the prints as inspiration. Orange Spot No. 1 (see above) is one of them. That’s the direction I plan to explore, solid colors and sharp lines, far from where I started.
MM: Are you able to create now? Or has grieving impacted your creativity?
BS: I am still trying to catch up on all the things I neglected while she was sick (and while I was recuperating from breaking my wrist in February when slid off the dog ramp in the rain), but I have managed to make some of our PiCassieO jewelry, which doesn’t involve a lot of time and helps me concentrate on something besides missing her, at least for a little while. Every time I go to my photo organizers there are dozens of pictures of Cassie, so I usually wind up crying instead of working. I’m trying to get all those photos organized and saved onto jump drives. It’s necessary if I am ever going to get back to serious work. I say “serious” but this is really the most fun I’ve ever had with my art, thanks to my goofball dog! She was my best teacher, as well as my best friend.
MM: I am so deeply sorry for your loss, Beth. I know no words can help, but I hope each day gets a little easier and you can find inspiration in Cassie’s photos in new and joyful ways. Rest in peace, sweet girl.
See more of Cassie and Beth Stafford’s work or buy your own PicassieO:
http://www.airedale-art.blogspot.com
http://www.bethstafford.com
http://www.picassieo.etsy.com
http://www.zazzle.com/picassieo
http://www.cafepress.com/PiCassieO_Art
http://www.facebook.com/BethStaffordArtAdventures
