The Art of Sitting with a dog

livestock guardian dog

Sitting with a dog who is keeping company with his surroundings rather than with us as we so often expect dogs to do. (Why is it that we make every occurrence be about us anyway – particularly where dogs are concerned)? Sitting with a dog who is making his time be about whatever he has going on, rather than making his time be about us.

Leaving them alone to do so; not making demands on them to do otherwise or calls to insist they come over and keep you company or to show you reverence by obeying you.

Not making demands on yourself to be with dogs in a particular fashion arising from the latest training guru.

There you sit in the same time and place, each observing deeply but differently; not needing to be each other’s company but by being there becoming each other’s company, and by doing that connecting to the nature you both live and breath.

Do they know they are my wonder and my world?

Wool artwork, each piece 28″ square

Along the journey of being an artist I have been drawn time and again to neutral tones, to pieces made with the natural colors of wool. I have often questioned what the fascination is and with these two pieces a little nugget fell into place. Working with only three of four shades of natural wool takes me to the moments of lived simplicity. Moments of making no demands on another being, but just sitting in the same time and space with them. In a similar vein working with natural colors of wool makes no demands on the fibre to be other than what it is.

The above artwork is two seperate pieces. I realized upon making this blog post that the photo of both of them together looks like one piece was cut in two. Not the case. Each piece is 28″ square and made entirely from wool. I’ll take proper photos yet and each one will go up for sale but meanwhile they will hang as a headboard above my bed where they will be the guardian of my sleep.