Jack Russell Flex

A bad dream woke him. Flex sat up, crows cawed. He looked up and said to the cloudy sky, thanks for the challenge. I will turn this into a beautiful day.

Flex looks at you one second, future you the next. He’s decided. He runs. Jumps. And kisses you all the same.

Greyhound Claudia

She sits. She looks at you looking at her. She looks away at the butterfly then back at you. You smile, she smiles. She’s Claudia.

Claudia asks what’s in the night sky. You stretched out your hand. She sits. You lift her up. Her eyes twinkle. Stars twinkle.

Jeans waistband twisted origami style became a shape that could be any four legged animal. I stitched onto her a skin of faded black t shirt. Smooth and long, they could be a slender grey dog. But too weak to strike out on her own. They’d need boundaries, in the form of thinned stretch denim, protecting the soft inside surrounding a strong core.

Dachshund Melanie recycled textile art doll 1

Dachshund Melanie

When they laughed at her for her short legs, she wasn’t bothered.

She knows she’s closer than they are, to the ground from which all lives spring,

When she straightens her back, sits up, and reaches for the sky, she’s among the stars.

Jerry chihuahua recycled textile art doll 1

Chihuahua Jerry

Jerry isn’t at all aware of his small stature. Who would? With his big head, big ears and big eyes, big smile, big brain and big heart?

In face of fire, Jerry burns brighter.

Fluffster fluffy white dog recycled textile art doll 1

Fluffy white pup Fluffster

Fluffster knows he can’t know it all, so he doesn’t bother at all.

Seeing is not knowing, knowing needs no seeing. Fluffster brushed his hair away from his eyes because of this photoshoot.

Cavalier puppy Ruth textile art doll

Cavalier Ruth

She’s been told she doesn’t worry enough to take things seriously.

She doesn’t know what it means to worry, or to be serious.

Ruth does know how to smile, with her bulgy thread eyes, tangled ears, and every fabric scrap she’s made of, melting problems miles away.

Greyhound Chimney

Chimney is made from a grey t shirt, not dark not to light not warm cool, just somewhere between everything. He squeals at a quivering grass, whimpers when snail slows, tap dances when it drizzles. Even middle grey can’t conceal what he’s made of. It spills everywhere he was joined. When he says he likes you, he means it.

Greyhound Charlotte

A paint splattered t shirt became her body. Her limbs are loosely held together soft and strong. She’s quick to respond to anything that comes to her. Sometimes it’s brilliant, sometimes it’s opse. She asked for intervention. I showed her how to sit, pause, and breathe. She’s the same Charlotte but now her smile comes from a different place.

Husky Timofey

He was in a bad place when his friends laughed at him for the white facial sheet mask he had to wear before his face was stitched. In waiting, he observed others morphing either voluntarily or by circumstances, from one state to another. He thought some changes were deserved, some were better without. Now that he’s been there, now that he’s been through it, he looks up, eyes reflecting the blue sky over his head, recognises everyone goes through phases, only to be more truly themselves, no better or worse.

Cattledog Sprinkles

I brought little in my backpack, only a few scraps equaivalent to one small tshirt. I cobbled the pieces, careful not to breathe too hard, a featureless creature smaller than a thread spoil appeared. Months later when I had more, I refilled him, he bluges and is heavy for his size. I stitched ‘now’ over his belly. Sprinkles knows he is the best cumulated effort of every moment of ‘’now’.