Samantha

Samantha

Oil on canvas, 12x12. Contact Lori at Center Framing & Art, 860-233-7804, for price and delivery options.

I was the editor of The Westerly Sun when the paper did a story on people who come to the area for the summer, adopt animals and then leave them behind when they, the people, go back home. Can you believe that? It happens a lot.

Danny Hyland, a photographer for the paper and a good friend, came back from the shoot and said he'd gotten great photos but there was one I wasn't allowed to see, because he knew we already had enough animals.

I didn't go looking for it, but stumbled over it while I was looking for something else. It was a photo of a tiny, terrified kitten, hiding in the back corner of the cage.

I brought her home that very afternoon. She was, and is, pretty much feral, though she has made sure inroads towards civility. She did get out one day, soon after we'd gotten her, and we had to trap her to get her back. In the meantime, she got pregnant. Puffy, who I've painted before, is one of Samantha's kittens. The two despise each other.

But Samantha is a pretty cat, and sweet, when you can get close to her. In New York, she pretty much lived in one of our bathrooms, spending her days on the windowsill. Here, she lives in the basement and Peter's study, and ventures into the rest of the house from time to time. She is safe and clean and warm and well fed. And she seems happy, or at least, as happy as she can be.