Every Dog Must Have His Day

 
Mad Dog Days & Art in the Midday Sun

Now that everyone and their dog is an artist, I find myself, quite often, liking the dogs work best. There is a certain 'je ne sais quois' that thrills about the bold daubings of a Pyrenean Mountain Dog, known only as Sid, encountered, unexpectedly on a rainy Friday evening, in a city coffee-house, populated sparsely by the temporary flotsam washed in from the Tottenham Court Road in the slow hours, between the departure of daytime crowds on trains to Surrey and the suburbs, and the arrival of the night shift flood tide of human debris that flows into every theater, pub and club and then overflows through every doorway and back out again on to the wet streets, and all this while waiting for a robusta Caffè macchiato served by an unexpected Bedlington Terrier.

Famous example of life imitating art - woof

It is a curious but well documented fact that any dog that has as yet to have had its day exhibiting the fruits of such tentative forays into the world of the arts as 'small water colour of Ball in the Seine' or 'Still Life with Bone - in mixed media', will, almost always, be found, whether in new world New York, that champion of the modern movement, or old world Rome with its penchant for the classics, or Venice with its eyes turned to the renaissance, serving up coffees and calling themselves baristas! Dogs hey, you have to laugh, woof woof.

Dog Playing Cards for dogs playing cards

But, when all is said and done, there is nothing more tiresome than some pushy chihuahua trying to flog a shiny red balloon shape of Jeff Koons as an 'homage to the artist', in some chi chi pop-up boutique/gallery in Shoreditch or the rather drole sight of a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, much the worse for drink, holding forth at the private view of a Miniature Schnauzer, heavily into abstract expressionism, on 'the merits of action painting in a virtual context' to a crowd of over excited Bichon Frisés. What ever next! It will be cats playing pianos and gorillas painting before you can say youtube, youtube, youtube and I wish I was in Kansas, Toto!