Pink Cat in Verse and Paint

I was attracted to a poem about a cat. Or I should say the memory of a poem about a cat that was white with pink highlights. The cat was running in my memory and became entirely pink and grey so I painted it that way and added a collage border like I had on a previous small painting of a leaping cat. I showed it to my friend Kris Miller, who had written the poem that inspired the painting. She pointed out that the poem was about a sleeping cat. Funny how memory plays tricks on one. The color pink loomed so large in my recall of the poem that the state of sleep was erased.


Yesterday I finished some designs for a commission so had some time to spare between the client’s final decision and the start of the work. Into this small gap between activities I dashed off a painting of a sleeping pink cat. Still not true to the actual cat because the sleeping cat was white, the pink cat is at least in repose. Yet looking at the poem again, it could very well be about a rose colored cat. It is a light and humorous little kitty ditty so perhaps it was fitting to make a miniature about it.

I had just enough border design from my previous painting/collage to fit around the border of this one as well. It created an impression of a quilt. At various points in the painting I brought the dark triangular shapes of this border into the painting.

Another look at the poem reveals an essence captured even if details are not correct:

43 – Pinkie II (Mickey)

One cat is nicknamed Pinkie

But not because he’s a commie

Along with an eye that’s winky

He got his genes from his Mommie.

So as he grew up and got older

His gray paws got much paler

And his nose turned bicolor

As a rosy hue took over. -Kris Miller