Dog Days

Has painting gone to the dogs? A lighthearted look at one dog
who thinks that's not such a bad thing.
by Dorothy Krasowska

When I arrived at the 105 Devoe Gallery in Williamsburg for the opening of Tillie’s second one-artist show, I was not sure quite what to expect. Tillamook Cheddar, a.k.a. Tillie, is not one of those dog artists that jump in your lap when they greet you. She lives up to her reputation as "bitch of the art world" by shrouding herself in controversy. Living up to my anticipations, Tillie played the role of the diva. Two photographers, each from rival newspapers, were competing for her attention. They each tried to lure her with flattery and bits of the cheese she was named after in order to get her to pose for them. Tillie quickly grew tired of their antics and excused herself from the photo shoot choosing instead to follow a robust male who happened to cross her path. But the tryst was cut short by the artist’s busy schedule.

A few moments later, Tillie began her performance in which she creates a picture in front of the audience. She believes that the process of making her work is just as important as the final piece. Her assistant carefully placed a mat board covered in colored transfer paper on the floor. The artist immediately attacked it. She gnawed and scratched away at the surface. Her animal instincts surpassing the aggression and machismo of even de Kooning’s violent imagery in the "Women Series." One moment she is licking the surface, the next she is ripping it up. She used her claws and teeth to dig into her work. After a few minutes, the canvas had to be removed from her grip. The artist apparently enters a trance while working and often destroys her own drawings. The final piece, much like the other thirty or so on the wall, contained a Cy Twombly palette and lines that puncture the picture plane in an erratic way - her signature style.

A few days after the opening, I was granted an interview with the artist - the first one she has ever consented to. Apparently, she wanted to set the story straight about her last appearance on television. On Halloween day this year, the New York Channel 7 evening news had aired an exposé on her work that had simply infuriated her. I sat beside her while she played the video for me. From the first bad pun in the introduction that began, "Art that’s gone to the dogs" to the final comment that starving human artists must be jealous of her success, Tillie could not sit still. Other remarks were simply unfounded. When they claimed she had "bad breath," she automatically licked my face to prove a point. She was right, no halitosis there. Another blatant stereotype against the K-9 community was now demystified. The show said that she creates art "for a biscuit." Her tortured barking suggested otherwise: "No one gives me a biscuit. I’m the boss." The news anchors also claimed that she slept in a cage. I saw where she slept, and her room is bigger than mine is. She also wanted to put an end to the comparisons between her drawings and Komar and Melamid’s latest collaborations with elephants. Tillie was quick to stick out her paws, exposing her delicate frame. How could her tiny mitts and sixteen-pound body be compared to those two-ton creatures? I laughed in agreement; how could they? After the interview I was delighted to find that Tillie was not only kind, but also generous. BARC (Brooklyn Animal Resource Coalition) received 15% of her sales from the Devoe show. Considering she sold over half of the works from her last exhibit, BARC might end up naming a wing after her.

And her success continues to swell. In addition to a website (www.tillamookcheddar.com), new t-shirts, and her upcoming show (December 7 through February 7) at 176 Grand Gallery in Manhattan, Tillie is also be featured in a one-page ad in the December issue of Artforum. In her upcoming exhibition, Tillie will be premiering her latest "Velvet Paintings" which comment on the division between high and low art. With all of the prosperity and generosity surrounding Tillie, perhaps she will no longer be known as the bad mannered bitch that critics have made her out to be, but simply a female-dog whose artistic bite more than matches her bark.

Dorothy Krasowska lives in Brooklyn and writes about art, yes, even canine art.

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