Artist's Statements About Individual Works

Dog on a chain • 2003

Mixed-media (inkjet, ink, and pencil) with computer-altered wash drawing, transfer type, and hand lettering on Okawara kozo paper, mounted on canvas with ink-dyed Okawara fragments • 16 x 12

I could not get Charles Simic’s poem out of my head until I “did something about it.” A quotation around the outer rim of the canvas reads: “The standards for defining the existence of emotions in animals begin with those in common use for humans. One should demand no more proof that an animal feels an emotion than would be demanded of a human — and, like humans, the animal should be permitted to speak its own emotional language, which it is up to the beholder to understand.”

— When Elephants Weep by Masson & McCarthy, 1995