Thursday, March 28, 2024
black catscat photographscatsdaily photolucymy household of felines

From the Archives: Lucy in My Studio

black kitten
Lucy in November 2006.

Lovely Lucy from November 2, 2006, just past six months old. Remember that she is one of Mimi’s daughters from an earlier litter, a half-sibling to the Fantastic Four. Who do you think she looks like?

I store my photos in folders, one for each day, and include a few keywords with the date so I know what’s in there. I began this system in 2005 and haven’t always been persistent, but enough that I can find images, or at least a general time period where they should appear. Every few days I check the archives for what was happening around the current date in previous years for the The Creative Cat and Today and for other things I’m working on, and sometimes just because.

The only photos I took on November 2, 2006 were seven digitals of Lucy, sitting next to me on my desk, letting me know how mind-numbingly dull I was as a playmate for a kitten. At the time, the next-youngest cat in the house was Kelly, who was 12; Namir, Cookie, Sophie, Peaches and Stanley raged from 14 to 24, and while Namir played with Lucy pretty regularly, most of them slept a little more than she did. So she was on her own to explore quite a bit, and often came to be with me. I had just begun to realize in the month prior to this that she probably was not going to be adopted and, twist my arm, I might as well get accustomed to her quietly melodramatic personality, and her devotion to me. I was smitten immediately.

In the background you can see the results of her recent efforts, the single candoliers and fan knocked about on the windowsill, papers strewn, stuff that got piled in the middle of the table instead of being on the floor. This is where the Fantastic Four wrestle now, but in that day my drafting table was there, and next to it my painting easel, and I kept a much neater desk, except for a whirlwind of a black kitten.

black cat face
A closeup of Lucy's face.

Perhaps it’s that time of the year, All Hallow’s Eve, Samhain, la Dia de los Muertos, but I’ve been thinking of Lucy as I look at her five relatives; then she turns up in a folder of photos on November 2, when she was still just a silly kitten, no sign of FIP or any other thought of mortality. I think of her frequently when I look at them and wonder what she’d look like today. But she will always be my amber-eyed kitten, and in the closeup of her face, above, I see a bit of each of the five black cats who live with me now. I know there is a part of her in each of them. Read a poem I wrote about her.


All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.

Bernadette

From health and welfare to rescue and adoption stories, advocacy and art, factual articles and fictional stories, "The Creative Cat" offers both visual and verbal education and entertainment about cats for people who love cats, pets and animals of all species.

4 thoughts on “From the Archives: Lucy in My Studio

  • Thanks for the BEAUTIFUL photos of Lucy. I’d left the page open to the one at the top when I went downstairs to refill my tea and did a double-take when I walked back into the room. I remember when we visited the kittens and about how we’d ALMOST adopted Lucy with one of her brothers…. It turned out that the two boys were the inseparable ones, though, so they remained together (and are most likely curled up with each other now). Lucy has the same pigmentation design in her ears as Angus with similar eye color). Mimi made some beautiful kittens, and I’m VERY glad they were limited editions. Have you ever tracked down any of the kitties from the litters in between?

    Reply
    • Amby, I LOVE limited edition kittens! But they are all the more valuable for that. I do know where their sister Charlotte lives and keep in touch with her family, but have not found any of the others. I think we could all tell the boys were inseparable much as the idea of a brother-sister pair was nice, but I remember when you and Danny called, you thought it would be nice to have brothers again. Mr. Sunshine has Lucy’s eyes and Giuseppe’s nose and ear, it’s so cut to look at her photos and see that.

      Reply
  • She’s a beauty! She seems smaller than her half-siblings, but then she was still a kitten. I love the pose with all four feet together and her tail wrapped around them.

    Reply
    • Vicki, she may have been petite like her mom–at one year old, Lucy was still just six pounds–or it may have been that she was carrying FIP all along somehow and it stunted her growth, one of the many symptoms. But she was very much a proper lady, and in no small part melodramatic, but without Giuseppe’s neurotic tendency, more like a Scarlett O’Hara type.

      Reply

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this:
Verified by ExactMetrics