It's the sweet, full cushions above his lips reflecting the hanging belly, resting comfortably between splayed legs that speak about dogs. When Jake sat like this, more than likely he was also slipping, degree by degree, backwards on the tile floor. His ears, up high like helicopter propellers and flicked back, attentively listening. This set of sculptures, What Dogs Are Like, made after Jake died, caught the moments that caused me to love him so. This one, Three Legged Dog, lost the fourth in firing. I was as shocked as anyone whose dog loses a leg, wondering how he could possibly go on, how he would ever balance and do the things a dog needs to do, like sitting, vulnerable in his attention to the next miniscule signal, waiting for the next word of direction or adventure, ready for anything, as long as it was together. And big feet, Jake had the biggest softest feet. We printed them after he died, on the sweetest paper I could find in enough time. His print resides in an envelope with a note about "death is coming", the cause, finally, of his demise.
Three Legged Dog is also a tribute to all the dogs that lose the use of legs without losing their ability or lust for life. This dog is for me, and Woody, and the dog in Little Italy, NYC who walks with his hind quarters on a cart, wheeling right along his companion dog and his man, taking the nightly stroll, because it is what dogs do.
