Recently the fabric of my life has been altered, and I’m trying to find a new normal. My dog, Splash, died after a brief and brutal illness. She was a key part of my family since we first adopted her in the Covid summer. For the past nearly four years she had been a constant source of joy, laughter, comfort, and the forging of new friendships, canine and human alike.
Me and Splash hiking in San Jose, 2021
I still can’t wrap my head and my heart around it. Four weeks ago she was perfectly healthy; we went on a sunset walk at a local county park where I took what turned out to be my last ‘normal’ photos of her. Over the past three weeks she suddenly developed an autoimmune disease called pemphigus vulgaris, in which the skin and mucous membranes break down, painfully. We sought every answer and solution possible; it took over two weeks to really get a diagnosis. We took her to specialist vets; we treated her there and nursed her at home. This is a very rare disease, and the treatments didn’t work. She held up and held on, but after another hospital stay and a lack of a miracle, we helped her let go.
Splash holding wool roving while I photographed her for inclusion into a slide show for an elementary school about my artwork - a very willing model.
She was a remarkably clever dog, AND loved to eat anything and everything-- which helped her learn lots of tricks as well as the names of all of her family members, many of her dog/human friends from our extended neighborhood dog community (and she knew, of course, which dog went with which person), and she could identify by name and bring over many of her toys. It seemed like she understood compound sentences; at least she certainly learned ways to get what she wanted by paying attention to what paid off. She was affectionate; she was barky when excited, although she could also ‘whisper’ if there was food in it for her. When you would stop patting her she’d paw at your hand for more.
I miss her terribly.
The forms of rolling foothills echo through my artwork. Hiking at Ed Levin County Park.
My daily morning routine was to walk three miles with her through our neighborhood along any number of regular routes, or an adventure hike somewhere farther afield. It was a time for thinking, planning, observing, or escapist listening to audiobooks. I watched the seasons affect the landscape, saw wildlife, waved to other ‘regulars,’ and even found fossils in the local streambed. It has always been an act of discovery, no matter how small. I can’t overstate how much daily rambles through familiar but subtly changing landscapes fuels my sculptural practice and shapes my day.
A ramble in Pacific Grove, CA.
And yet there were times I resented the time taken away from my work. Every day: an hour in the morning and usually another full hour in the evening plus feeding our family and parenting and spending time with my husband and cleaning things and appointments and soccer games. It has always been frustrating trying to carve out enough time to make art, much less all of the other administrative time-sucking parts of being an exhibiting artist.
A puppy nap at my studio in the early days, 2020.
If you’ve been following along at all with my artmaking through this (occasional) blog or my much-more-frequent updates on Instagram, you’ll know I’m in the midst of creating a new body of work for a solo show that opens this September. I love a deadline and a venue and a plan: it’s what gives me the extra push to prioritize artmaking (and, thus, sanity).
Now I have more time.
But I’d happily trade it for more time with my sweet dog.
Gratuitous puppy photo in the studio, 2020.
It has been terribly hard on our whole family, but we’ll get through it bit by bit. We’re focusing on good memories. Her presence was felt through every part of our lives, so there are dog-shaped holes all over the place. Finding a plastic poop bag folded and ready in the pocket of my raincoat with eventually not prompt tears, I’m sure.
Hanging out under Hanging Pods in my studio, 2022.
There’s a lot of grief out there, and plenty of reasons for it. I’ll admit there are times that I almost feel apologetic for feeling such overwhelming loss over my dog, given the state of the world and the wretched situations for so many humans. But it’s not something that needs to be compared. It’s not a competition. There are certainly no winners in grief. Except in as much as grief is evidence of love.
I think feeling strongly and deeply goes hand-in-hand with being an artist. Being wide open and sensitive to what goes on in your personal life and in the wider world can often feel like too much, but it also fuels tangible expression of those feelings and experiences so that other people can share them. The objects artists create can prompt a sense of familiarity, of understanding, of connection.
As emotionally exhausted as I feel right now, it’s time to get back into the studio. I know that hands-on making settles my mind and tricky, experimental physical problem-solving demands focus. It’s time to figure out what my new normal will be. Working on the ‘In the Glow’ artworks that first took shape in my mind along those many dog walks seems like a good place to start.
Remembering that that studio is first and foremost a place for joy and play, as well as focus on what really matters to you.