For this week’s rescue story I’m sharing my June portrait from Great Rescues Day Book along with a clearance, a reprint and possibly a new volume of “great rescues” at the bottom of the post.

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IF YOU’LL ONLY BE ABLE to share your life with one cat, then finding a cat like Sherman is truly finding the cat of a lifetime. And their attachment was so profound they couldn’t decide on one final image of Sherman, but decided to go for two.

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Sherman’s family had not lived with any cats prior to Sherman, and have adopted none since, in fact, they are allergic to cats. Yet when an animal-loving friend needed to move from Pennsylvania to Texas and wanted to place as many as possible of her cats and dogs in homes before she left (taking the “unadoptables” with her), they met Sherman and decided to take him home. He was a full-bred ruddy Abyssinian with the gregarious personality and intuitive nature of the breed and adapted immediately, managing their schedules and greeting the neighbors.

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Sherman is one of the rescued cats featured in my Great Rescues Day Book, and here is his story.

Sherman had it all planned

When their friends with four children and a house full of animals needed to move, they thought it would be best if they found homes for as many of their cats and dogs as possible rather than make them endure the long drive and resettle. They had a number of animals they considered “unadoptable” because of illness, age or temperament, and those would travel with them. They would try to find homes for as many of the others before they left, but take any who hadn’t been adopted.

“We went to visit them and we came home with a cat!” said Rose. “The last time we visited they told us they wanted us to take Sherman.”

Sherman apparently had an idea what was going on. “I didn’t really want to adopt a cat, but Sherman knew Lou would be easier to work on so he started rubbing around Lou’s legs,” Rose recalled. Then Sherman wrapped himself around Lou and wouldn’t let go. Of course she couldn’t say no, and of course she fell in love with him too.

“We were totally unprepared,” they said. “Of course we had nothing for a cat. We don’t remember what they gave us, a litterbox and some food maybe, I’m not even sure if we had a carrier.” They drove 40 miles with him sleeping in the back seat until he started wandering around the car, even trying to get under the gas pedal, but they were almost home.

Never had pets, but Sherman made up for that

Rose never had a pet of her own, though her sister had had a cat growing up, but Lou never had a dog or a cat ever in his life. What made Sherman’s owner approach these two as his adoptive family? Knowing them myself I would think it was something about their kind and gentle natures. Sherman probably knew he could easily manipulate them. It was meant to be.

Sherman was eight years old then, but was so friendly and outgoing he sometimes seemed “like a puppy.” “He adapted right away,” Rose said. “It was as if he’d always been here.” He hadn’t been just manipulating Lou, though, Sherman just fell in love with Lou, and began the continuing habit of sleeping on Lou’s pillow.

This was when the allergies surfaced. Lou had always had some allergies and symptoms of asthma, but never having had a pet had no idea what the effect would be.

“The doctor said I had to get rid of the cat. I told the doctor, ‘No way, I’m not getting rid of the cat.’ The doctor said keep him out of the bedroom, I said ‘No way.’”

So Sherman always got his way. It was because they loved him so much.

They were amazed at some of his abilities. “He could read your mind, he knew how you felt and what you wanted to do,” said Rose.

Lou worked night turn, when Sherman decided Lou had slept enough he would pull Lou’s eyelids open.

“He loved everyone,” said Lou. “When we would take walks, no leash or anything, it wasn’t necessary, he would walk along with me, go up to greet people, and sometimes sit to wait for people to walk up to him,” he continued. “On a day when a lot of people were around or out in their yards the walk would take a long time, especially when there would be an open garage door and he would have to go and investigate until he was satisfied.” Of course, Lou would patiently wait on the sidewalk until Sherman was done with his investigation.

Rose recalled that when someone came to do an energy audit of their house, after the tour they settled down at the dining room table to talk over the findings. The guy had a beard, and Sherman started grooming this guy’s beard.

“Lou has a beard, and Sherman groomed his beard too,” Rose said. “I think Sherman thought Lou was a big cat.”

And though most of the memories of Sherman involve his relationship with Lou, Rose had her time with Sherman as well. “He was very comforting because he was so soft to touch. Sherman had a silky coat, it looked soft and it was soft,” she remembered

Sherman lived to be 18, a good ten years with a very special cat.

After they lost Sherman, Lou “realized how much breathing he had been missing”, and they both decided another cat was probably not a good idea.

“We see cats and we talk about it, but he’s allergic. He’s not so allergic that he can’t visit someone with pets, some he’s more allergic to than others,” Rose explained.

Sherman is still a big influence, and they still use his name whenever possible.

Sherman’s portrait set was one of the ones I needed to rephotograph in order to print the calendar. They are small, 8” x 8” each, and I had painted them in 1994 (the calendar says 1996, but I had the wrong date on my paperwork from way back then). The photos I took then were fine to trim down and add to my portfolio book, but enlarging them only lost detail and the colors were impossible to adjust. The lens I had then made focusing on something small very difficult; shortly after that I finally purchased a high-quality scanner and used that for anything small enough to fit in the scanner bed.

And even when I visited to pick up the portraits—I needed to bring them home to photograph them—the stories continued, and Lou was concerned about how long Sherman’s portraits would be away.

Creating the portraits, and why there were two

Rose and I worked together for several years in the 90s, and in addition to her day job Rose is herself a textile artist, so though we worked in different departments we would sometimes discuss local art events, like the Three Rivers Arts Festival, and what we’d seen there and were working on. Later, when I needed to learn about cold-set dyes and purchasing blank t-shirts for my Tortie Girls prints, she would also be the person to explain the different types of fabric dyes and guide me to Dharma Trading Company where I buy my blank shirts and dyes.

Remembering Lou’s relationship with Sherman, she decided a couple of years after they had lost Sherman she’d get Lou a portrait of him that he could keep forever. As we discussed Sherman’s portrait and looked at photos considering postures and settings, we initially decided on the image one of him outside on the patio since they had spent much time out there and it was simply a nice image, appealing to both of us. I was new to watercolor and couldn’t wait to start exploring the way fur worked in watercolor, though I knew it couldn’t be too detailed at that size. I was also excited about the plants, the leaf litter, even the concrete—I had painted very little besides cats to that point in any medium, especially watercolor, and I was studying the photo and planning my colors and brushes.

Yet she had mentioned more than once him sitting on the chair in front of the door, and knew that was a very special memory for Lou.

“He knew when the kids would be coming home from school, and would sit at the top of the steps (outdoors) to greet them,” both Rose and Lou agreed, “and then he’d be back in the house getting involved in whatever we were doing.” He also waited for Lou to come home from work, sitting on a chair which Rose had placed in front of the screen door.

Sherman at the door was a big, strong memory, but simply not as nice to look at as the one on the patio, yet the one on the patio wouldn’t serve all on its own, and I knew this from trying to choose images for portraits of my own cats.

I suggested two small portraits and she liked the idea so we didn’t have to choose one and eliminate the other, risking a regret later, and the possibilities of framing and hanging them appealed to her as well.

However, she didn’t have a photo of Sherman at the door. Well, I rarely work from one photo, and often add things that people have described to me, painted in backgrounds from photos I have, imagined what an animal looked like before the cataracts or the amputated leg, or tried to visualize an animal from the one and only photo available that shows the animal very small, blurry, and the flash washing out its face. If I have enough information, I can visualize the rest. It’s a different sort of a challenge to create a portrait from scratch.

We discussed the type of screen door and chairs they’d had, the house was pale yellow brick, and I took it from there.

I thought of everything familiar about an old metal screen door, the grille, the door handle, the very bricks around the door. As much as I was excited about the foliage in the garden and my love of growing things, I also love architectural details, even simple, humble ones like the old screen door with its curling tendrils and spiral center. I put in all I had ever studied while sitting on the front or back porch of so many houses. While everyone else talked, I studied the details. And as I painted and used the natural texture of the watercolor paper to create the texture of the screen in the door, I also played around with adding—gasp—non-representational colors in the shadows to liven them up! I had read that somewhere, and seen that in some paintings I’d studied as well.

I love these little portraits. They still touch my heart, and I’m so glad that an artist friend honored me by asking for my interpretation of their beloved cat. A few years later her sister commissioned me for a portrait of another beloved cat, Herbie.

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Here is Sherman’s page in Great Rescues Day Book

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And the June quote:

You can’t help that. We’re all mad here. ~ The Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland

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Read other stories in my Rescue Stories series on The Creative Cat, and other stories from Great Rescues Day Book here on Great Rescues Day Book.

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I’m heading for a reprint of this book, so help me with a clearance of the remaining books.

I have a dozen books left that regularly sell for $20 including shipping, handling and taxes. I’ve cut that price in half so the clearance sales can help finance the reprint. I hope to have the reprint ready for September. This clearance is only available here, on my website dedicated to this book. You can order some at the clearance price right below.

And someday soon a new Great Rescues Day Book!

I designed and published the original calendar in 2011, including portraits of rescued cats I’d done up to that point. I have enough new portraits to be able to do at least one new volume. I don’t think I can have that ready this year, but I’m going to begin designing it, because, why not?

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