June 18th, 2006
Jon Swihart
Dogs by Jon Swihart.
I have had the privilege of meeting and getting to know the work of painter Jon Swihart. Daniel commissioned Jon to paint our Italian Greyhounds, Giacometti and Cody, and yesterday we had a little stop-in party for friends to meet Jon, and see the painting and the dogs in person. (Jon told me that he has a group of painters that he works with, and when they work together, they often listen to my music. Very cool!)
It was a great time had by all. Daniel made home-made mojitos, there was good cheese and fruit. The most amusing quote of the afternoon was from interior designer, Vincent Jacquard, who, before arriving, had been chatting with a colleague in New York.
Vincent: I’m going to an unveiling of a dog painting in Hollywood.
Friend: That is the most goddammed homosexual thing I’ve ever heard of in my life.
I roared, but was ultimately happy to be doing something so, so, homosexual-like.
But seriously, check out Jon’s work: this is a major painter. You will be amazed. (Daniel designed the website by the way.)
June 23rd, 2006 at 12:02 am
Everyone should have a painter like this in their life! Congratulations both on a lovely addition to your lives, beautiful pooches — and obviously the perfect partner…
June 24th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
Thanks Inco! I love your Museum of Dust blog and visit it every day.
RB
July 3rd, 2006 at 4:59 am
[...] We have two dogs, Giaco and Cody, who are Italian Greyhounds. Underline: HOUNDS. I now know that if you have a dog that has any kind of “hound” or “hund” in its name, it howls. It is likely that “hound” and “howl” are related phonemically in humans trying to describe what this genetic swatch, er, breed does. They like to howl. Our dogs, after they became adult dogs, began to learn how to howl: first Cody (Giaco was absolutely baffled), and then 6 months later, Giaco got it. Cody is the alpha male, so HE has to decide that it’s time to howl. Giaco will hear something disturbing and race to Cody to alert him to his suspicions: Cody invariably trusts Giaco’s intuition and begins to bark, and then howl. Howling can be triggered by a variety of phenomena: another dog or other dogs daring to walk past Cody’s house; a suspicious sound that can include a sound that we might make unknowingly that they have never heard before; by the way — they don’t respond to our parrots constant attempt at training them; one of their many very good human friends that come to visit us (Giaco insists on hugging, Cody waits and licks face) but the best trigger for howling is the 911 fire engines that kick up all the time in our Hollywood neighborhood. [...]