Presumed Innocence

The animal kingdom has been the subject I obsessively depicted since I was young. I’ve always had animals in the home and surrounding me until recently. This is my childhood dog, Gracie. I first sat down with this painting half a year ago. Though she had been mostly completed, something felt empty, like only a part of her was showing on the canvas. She sat unfinished until a few weeks ago. As I heard about this prompt and turned over who she was in my mind, the idea for this setting came into view.
Gracie was both dainty and uncouth, regal and disgusting. She was magnetized to anything with a lingering odor. I show her here at the kitchen threshold, with the pure, sweet look that never left her face, with a rather morbid find from the yard. Her scarf is clean, so presumedly the tragedy that befell the bird is not her doing, maintaining her guiltlessness in at least some form. She passed away soon after we moved, the cardinal as our old home’s state bird. The threshold along with the deceased cardinal symbolize how temporary many of our animal friends are compared to us. We will continue to miss our dear departed friends for years after, even at their not so pleasant moments.