what's the story with the cat?

Many of you have written to ask about the cat featured prominently in much of my work. The cat was one of our much loved house cats. Like most people sharing their lives with cats, we have taken photos of them on a regular basis. The problem is that Sinatra was all black. His fur is slightly long, very shiny, and it completely absorbs light. That means that in most of our photos - you can't see Sinatra! He just looks like a black blob in the photo.

He lived with me forsixteen years and died from kidney failure, while my former-husband and I held him in our arms. Being a very considerate cat, Sinatra waited until my then-husband returned home from work so that I would not be alone, and so that we could both say our goodbyes. I miss him very much.

Sinatra was the most skittish of our cats. He was wild when we met him. As a result, he tended to hide a lot and when you did see him, he was generally curled up some place deemed "safe". I began to insert him into my drawings a few years ago because I felt bad that we had framed photos of all of the other cats, but not a single good one of our personal "Chairman of the Board". So, Sinatra became "King of Cats" in our house with a place of honor in my art.