The story of the pug painting.

I own very few things that I would say are truly "cool." But one thing I have that never fails to get commented upon is my pug painting. It's been a focal point in the last four places I've lived, and somehow, no matter how different the places were (Victorian brownstone, 80's nightmare, 50's hip), it has fit in perfectly.
I love this painting, and thought I'd share its story:

When my future-ex-husband and I moved into the amazing brownstone on the boulevard in Chicago's Logan Square, we were told that a) the last resident had been an artist, and b) he'd died of AIDS and left the front room filled with some of his old art and supplies. That was it. We didn't get his name or any other information about him. The front room was indeed kind of a mess. Mainly, there were a lot of stretched but never used canvases and cans of paint and thinner and old brushes. We started going through this stuff shortly after we'd moved in, and threw out most of it. But two of the things we found--this painting, and a human tooth (complete with root...we never did figure that one out, but were too creeped out to throw it out). We immediately hung it in the den above an antique, defunct player piano that the previous resident had also left behind. It was perfect.

When we moved to Austin a couple of years later, it was the first thing we unpacked. We hung it above the fireplace in our new house, and it immediately made the mid-80s house with rust-colored carpet feel like home. When my husband walked out on me, I took the painting with me to my bitter bachelorette pad, and again it looked great. Now it hangs above my couch in the living room the fifties-era house I live in now, looking like its always belonged there.

The sleeping pugs have indeed become a permanent part of my life.

I like to think that they were the artist's dogs, captured as they slept on the floor of that beautiful Victorian apartment. Maybe they were litter-mates or mother and daughter. They had people names--like Lucy and Ethel or Liza and Judy. He loved them like they were his children. He walked them a couple of times every day, until he no longer could. They were by his side when he passed away, and are still being lovingly taken care of by a brother, or his mother, or his partner.

And even if none of what I imagine is true, at least I know that this man's art is being lovingly taken care of and admired despite the fact that I never met him and he's no longer here.