Art goes to the dogs - and cats
By MICHAEL MOLITORIS

Photo by Jerry Sowden - This sample of Venango County Humane Society's PAWcasso art, painted by a shelter dog, is on display through the end of the month at the Transit Fine Arts Gallery. The works will be auctioned April 21 at Wanango Country Club.

So cute and furry - and they can paint, too!

Last July, Venango County Humane Society staff members, board members and good-hearted volunteers let some of the Deep Hollow Road facility's best-mannered dogs and cats do what critters invariably can do best - take a walk with messy paws.

And boy did they leave their mark.

It was all for a good cause and the results are pretty astounding.

Artsy, really.

The end product is part of an exhibit on display this month at the Transit Fine Arts Gallery in the Oil City's National Transit Building.

Think dogs, cats, several colors of paint, blank canvasses, paw prints of all colors, shapes and sizes, and a lot of abstract streak marks. Sound disorderly? Not in this case.

Local art enthusiasts, meet "PAWcasso."

It's not PAWcasso singular, rather 26 PAWcasso artists. For their hard work and to help raise awareness of adoptable cats, dogs, kittens and puppies, the animal-kingdom artists have been named the Transit Fine Arts Gallery's artists of the month - the first time a non-human has held the distinction ... let alone 26 non-humans.

"On First Night, someone told me about the project and the idea of the exhibit just sort of formed," said gallery coordinator Marilyn Karns. "We looked at each other and said, 'Wouldn't it be fun to do that here?' It's a way of one organization helping another, teaming efforts and having fun."

A sampling of the framed and matted PAWcasso paintings are on display in the gallery and will be auctioned later this year to raise money for the shelter.

"It's been very uplifting and very exciting." Karns said. "It puts a smile on people's faces, and they look at the artworks and like to hear the story of how they were created."

The local Humane Society got the idea early last year when workers heard about Butler County's Humane Society foray into animal art, and local PAWcasso co-chair Claire O'Brien went there in May to see how the fund-raiser paintings were done.

Venango County's shelter animals painted their works in July.

"It took a lot of volunteers that day to do everything from potty the animals to keeping them exercised," O'Brien said.

Nearly 20 volunteers worked that day to spread sheets of plastic, lay canvasses, dip the feline and canine feet and coax them to mark up the blank canvasses.

"You had to lead the dogs through the process with hot dogs to keep them moving forward," O'Brien said.

Even tail-wagging proved to be an effective "brush" stroke. Besides colored paw prints and paw streaks that adorn some of the chaotic-looking animal art, volunteers discovered that a little paint slopped onto Rover's tail could create quite a look if a canvas was held up against it. Then, just letting a dog's natural, excited back-and-forth tail wag take over could produce a great, feathered effect.

Dogs created artworks outside their kennels while the few cats that tolerated getting their feet wet with paint worked inside cages.

"It was fun and the animals were very, very cooperative," O'Brien said. "The animals that participated got treats and so did the rest of the animals that didn't participate."

"It was such a great day," said Humane Society board member and event co-chair Ruthanne Nerlich.

When all the pieces had dried, Williams Decorating in Oil City and Slater's Custom Framing and Victorian City Art and Frame in Franklin donated framing and matting services.

On April 21, Wanango Country Club has agreed to donate space for the Humane Society's first PAWcasso event where attendees will have the chance to bid on the neatly framed art through a silent auction. Pictures of the animals that created the works of art will be attached to the back side of each painting.

The event will feature live entertainment, several other locally produced pieces of visual art in a Chinese auction, and wine and cheese.

Event tickets will go on sale throughout the area in March. Local artists interested in donating paintings, sculptures, photographs or any other hand-crafted visual arts for April's PAWcasso fund-raiser may call Nerlich at 432-4532.

Though the larger paintings are not available for sale, smaller reproduction prints and packets of greeting cards with the pictures are available for sale in the Transit Fine Arts Gallery.

While some cards are available in variety packs, volunteers had some animals create artwork using specific color schemes for several local high schools.

For example, black and gold foot-printed cards are available complete with a Venango Catholic High School logo in the center of the card front; blue and white ones are available for Oil City High School; and black and red is available for Franklin High School.

The gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

"The cards have been going very well at the gallery. It's been very successful so far. And we've only had this really going five days," Karns said late last week.

All for a good cause

Funds raised through the sale and auction of all PAWcasso artwork will strictly benefit ongoing operational and maintenance costs at the shelter.

Nerlich said it takes approximately $170,000 each year to operate the Venango County Humane Society. The shelter has three full-time workers, including Kathy Rial who has served 14 years as shelter manager, Steve Burgdorfer, the 12-year veteran kennel manager, and his sister, Amanda Burgdorfer. Beyond that, volunteers, including the society's board of directors, do everything else from payroll to bookkeeping.

The society only charges minimal adoption fees and that's about the extent of public money that goes into the organization. The rest is realized through grant monies and fund-raisers, of which PAWcasso now is part.

The shelter cares for more than 2,000 animals each year and has an adoption rate of 71 percent.

"We really do very, very well at the shelter," Nerlich said.

The organization also provides a free spay/neuter certificate that covers the cost of that surgery for every adopted unaltered animal.

Since 1983, the spay/neuter program has provided more than $1.25 million for the prevention of unwanted puppies and kittens in Venango County.

The shelter has its roots in an organization that started in 1901 by "concerned matrons" to prevent cruelty to draft and carriage horses. Today's organization traces its beginning to 1954 when 18 animal lovers gathered to discuss the problem of strays, unwanted animals and animal cruelty.

Since the mid-1970s, the Humane Society has made humane treatment of animals a priority. Speakers and animals regularly visit area schools and community organization to provide humane education programs. More than 1,000 children learned how to care for and treat animals and to understand the importance of animals in people's lives a couple years ago. They also were instructed on how to protect themselves if approached by an aggressive animal.

If more money allows, the Humane Society wants to add what could be a full-time humane officer to its staff ranks, Nerlich said. That person would have the power to cite people who treat animals inhumanely.

"The position would help protect animals that are being abused or neglected," Nerlich said. "That personal also would help animals that are left out in the cold and others that are left out with no food when their owners go away."

The humane officer would work strictly in Venango County.

The Derrick 2/12/07