“Shadow art” brilliant but taxing for feline artist
SUSAN LOESCH
CATS IN THE STACKS
The scheduled library cat on duty today was … the one who was nearest me when it was time to leave! That turned out to be Shadow.
For the first time he didn’t make a peep on the way to work and that is great progress.
When I sat down at the computer he joined me and immediately knocked two pictures over and down the book return, pushed the stapler to the floor and walked across the keyboard a couple of times, followed by plopping down in the space he had cleared.
“Good job, Shadow,” I told him, “You may have to be the Head Library Cat just because you make me laugh out loud!”
He made us all laugh over and over today.
The 6th graders were here for their very last library period as elementary students. I told them that next year library gets to be not so much fun. They will have to sit down at a table and be quiet and work on schoolwork.
One student looked at me, eyes wide. “For real???”
Yep, for real, but not just yet. We pulled bean bags into the video room, and Shadow joined us, moving from person to person, finally settling in Brianna’s lap, in the front row, of course!
Trinity has been wanting me to get some ink and let Shadow “pawtograph” all the yearbooks.
We can’t use ink, I’d told her, because it is toxic. So I went looking for food coloring. Unable to locate the old-fashioned liquid kind, I purchased the gel, which is perfectly safe for kids and cats, but not too effective for paw prints; when used at full strength it stays sticky.
Some of my secondary kids helped me add some of the gel to water, hopefully to get something better to make prints.
Shadow cooperated perfectly, but the result was just a blur of watery purple. “Try it straight from the tube,” suggested someone.
Sure enough it made a good print but was sticky.
At that point we gave up – until Mary said, “Hey, we can have ‘Shadow art!’”
With Shadow’s full approval, we added footprints of orange, green and pink, decorated with a few stray black hairs.
We are now proud to announce that we have a resident artist in the library. Shadow cleaned his paws, looked at the finished masterpiece and headed to a chair to rest.
We can’t overwork the artist, you know.
Susan Loesch has been the librarian at the Arkansas School for the Blind for 35 years and is on the board of Feline Rescue and Rehome. She started the library cat program about 10 years ago after much animal therapy research.
What a cutie Shadow is! Reminds me a lot of someone whose feet might have been a little bigger, but maybe Shadow, with his calm demeanor and adorable personality, just MIGHT sorta partly fill those little furry shoes and mittens.
My Little Black Henry highly approves, and James the Cat sends a purr from The Heavyside Layer! (He tells me that he, Big Footsie, Alex, and all the Young Guys who arrived up there a lot too soon, have now become good buddies. James, who is much older, has taken these “kids” under his furry black wing.)
Congratulations, Shadow, upon shouldering the mantle of Resident Artist!