Vintage Photo: Bootsie Waiting for Me, October 8, 1983

Sometimes grieving interrupts your daily schedule even though the cause and effect aren’t apparent. Sometimes it takes interesting turns, back into another memory that’s comforting and gives new insights.

 

Look pretty nearly in the center of this photo and you’ll see a cat sitting at the top of the steps. It’s my cat Bootsie! She’s the cat I chose and my parents adopted for me when I was nine years old. This house is the second place I rented after college, 13 years later. My college roommate and I lived on the first floor from September 1983 to May 1984 with my cats Bootsie, and Kublai who I rescued in college, and her cat Puck.

And this was when I still let my cats outside, at least for some part of the day. I remember that Bootsie loved the porch on that house and I have a number of photos of her there like these of her on the railing I featured several years ago, and I don’t remember her ever leaving the porch.

She was 13 then, and that was old for a cat in those days. She had always been an indoor-outdoor cat, on the small side, quiet, gray and white. I think about her physical shape and see in photos from this era that she had lost some muscle mass, something I hadn’t known about then, but she was still spry, jumping up on the railing from the porch floor, walking along and napping there.

Today’s photo is from the very first roll of black and white film I shot with my brand new Pentax K1000 camera on October 8, 1983. I only know that because for the first several months I identified each photo on the back with the number of the roll, and the number of the negative on that roll.

 

She’s got her eye on me. I know I wouldn’t have left her outside when I went to work or would be away for a longer time and checked a calendar for October 1983 to see this was a Saturday. A warm sunny Saturday in October, just right for trying out my new camera! I might have walked a block down to Main Street at the bottom of the hill to the grocery store or something (no car yet, not even a driver’s license), or to the library (the same one I’ve mentioned many times here to the present day), which was two doors down. I’ll have to find the rest of the roll to know what else I photographed.

Time passes and you can forget so much. Bootsie was affectionate but could be distant. I know now that she felt more secure if she initiated being touched, and if I gave her space she did, she established that at the very beginning. I know that now but didn’t realize the reason for that distance then and I was never really sure how she felt about me, my first cat, not really knowing cats all that well. But looking through the black and white and color photos I took of her when I first got my camera I can see that she loved being photographed and even at this beginning I took photo after photo of her, just as I do with my cats today, and she kept modeling for me. Now, I can see her expression and her actions as communicating how she felt about me, and that she recognized how I felt about her.

And here she is, on the front porch of a rented house, intently watching me walk home on the sidewalk, some anticipation and eagerness in her posture. I felt a tingle of joy looking at this photo, excited that she anticipated me coming home, imagining her standing up and putting her tail in the air as I walked up the steps, putting her head up to be petted, and turning to follow me into the house, trotting ahead of me, probably the same tingle of joy I felt then, walking up the sidewalk and seeing her there following me coming home with her gaze. Remembering her in that space is a happy memory, and finding this photo in particular feels warm and welcoming.

Finding and sharing this photo played a role in me resolving some grief over the last few days.

In the studio today

Usually I share “Vintage Photos,” those I’d taken with my film camera before digital, on Sundays, and this is Tuesday. I know that doesn’t matter, I can share one any time. But there’s a reason for the timing and for a photo of Bootsie from this era. After all my recent losses I’ve been thinking about all those cats who I lived with over the years and I really wanted to share photos from way back, from that early era. Not that it was an easier or simpler or happier time because it really wasn’t, but I learned there were other lessons for me in this, only found as I followed the process of searching and finding and thinking and writing.

I especially craved an autumn photo from 1983, that first year of the camera. Even though this is black and white, just imagine the leaves a bright yellow, and lots of sunshine, as I remember it.

And I know that cats in general, and my cats in particular, had always inspired me though I didn’t recognize that then, but I can see the first thing I did with my camera was use a lot of film making images of them, learning to use the camera, framing images and noting composition, but also capturing our relationship without even realizing it.

Avoiding the studio

This post is also about pet loss and grief. Finding and sharing this photo also has to do with my recent losses, and easing myself through grief. I’ve had a hard time being in the studio for any length of time because I miss Mr. Max so much and his memory is strong in there. Morty and I have a great time when I let him out into the upstairs for a while each day, but when I go into the studio I’m out pretty quickly. I hadn’t changed a thing but Morty’s food and litterbox since Mr. Max died on August 29 until last week when I moved some craft materials to the basement just to break the ice with being in there, and moved some old paperwork to sort from the basement to the studio hoping it would encourage me to spend time in there.

I’ve been thinking about all of them each day as I visit the garden and yard in the morning and one or two other times each day, but I’m really hurting from losing Max. I think it may be my sense of helplessness as I finally got him to a veterinarian in October 2024, but then we lost Basil and Mr. Max’s condition increased but my finances didn’t always follow, apologizing to him and doing what I could that always seemed inadequate and too late, and maybe that I’ve hit my limit with overlapping losses.

Letting grief get in my way, intentionally

But that means I haven’t been able to work in the studio at all, I just can’t focus and I’ve been able to get away with that since August, but I have a book cover to illustrate and that’s the best place to do it for the setup and the light, and I’ve been looking forward to spending time in there with Morty. But it’s also a stark reminder that Mr. Max isn’t here anymore. I’ve been putting that off and not getting things done when I should, but I don’t want to force myself to get over this.

When I have work to do and I’m not getting it done for any reason I intentionally corner myself into getting to it: I don’t let myself stop and post here or anywhere, or to pick up any little home projects, or run errands, or even cook bigger meals because I’ll take all day with it, avoiding what I really need to do. In fact, at one point I’d even decided I would move my studio back downstairs where I worked for my first few years here rather than make myself work in that room. I had done a couple of paintings at the kitchen table. But the idea of Morty being alone all the time prevented me from moving forward with a full move.

I had an article to write too and I’d wanted to have both assignments done by last Friday but finally decided to just write the article first so I couldn’t use that as an excuse either.

I finally got into the studio Monday afternoon and made myself stay in there, even though it hurt to face Max’s absence. I let myself spend two hours moving things around, moving things out, sorting things, petting Morty, digging out a power cord for the computer up there, planning how I’d move the furniture around, all legitimately needed to be done.

My reward for getting this far

One of my “rewards” for getting to that point was letting myself take the time to sort through my film photos all stored there to find one of these autumn photos from 1983. I wasn’t sure why but knew there had to be a reason, and found this one, letting the story begin in my mind.

Finally I put the paper on my easel and started on the illustration. I put three solid hours into it, and it went well and feels good. It no longer feels painful to be in there, though I can’t let go of Mr. Max’s loss.

Maybe I’ll finally quit avoiding the studio too. I’ve loved my time in there over the years. I’m actually looking forward to being in there even with the sadness I feel. It’s the only way to dispel it and remember how much Mr. Max loved it when I was in there.

How the past and present mesh in a new memory

But this memory of another cat I loved and lost back then, my memories of her and her early inspiration for me combined with my current grief helped me resolve grief on many levels, even a little lingering uncertainty with Bootsie, feeling I’d been wrong to keep my distance and think she felt less for me because she expressed to me her need for distance. Without this experience of working through my grief and opening myself up to my studio again I never would have recognized some of the elements of the story about Bootsie that I wrote, above. Sometimes you urge yourself through something that’s painful, not with force, and you find so much you’d been missing.

And I’m looking forward to a winter of working in the studio.

So I’m a little off my schedule, but the wait was worth it!

And enjoy other vintage photos from autumn below…

 

Vintage Photos From Other Years

A Sunny Room, 1983

This is definitely one from the archives! It’s probably taken in 1983, when I first got my camera and began photographing with black and white film. Kublai, the kitty who rescued me in college and truly began my life as an animal artist, was only about two years old. It’s hard to imagine that many years ago! And imagine me with my first camera…

I’ve always like the photo above, for Kublai, of course; I have so few photos of him because he was usually hanging on me somewhere and I rarely had the chance to photograph him. I can only remember his grace and presence, but that I do remember, and very well.

I was a new photographer then, had only had my first camera a few months and basically knew nothing about it, but this is how I learn. And as Kublai led me to the study of himself and thereby other cats as art subjects, so he led me down the path of cat photographer and I learned by doing, arriving at today’s creative efforts, and heading for tomorrow’s.

So in addition to simply him, I also appreciated his shape on the windowsill, that easily recognizable graphic outline of a cat shape that black cats often give us, and also the specifics of Kublai’s personality, the tall hips and long hind legs, waving tail, round face and bold bearing. I also photographed for the light, bright, airy feeling, of this spacious room in an apartment in a huge Victorian house,  and specifics of the scene—the waterfall of the starched and ironed (by me) cotton batiste curtain across the window and falling on the sill diffusing the light, the big leafy wandering jew and bit of the asparagus fern I’d had for years which are almost as much of a subject as Kublai, and even the fact that it has an antique appearance though it’s not old, just black and white but developed in a color machine.

I am sometimes amazed at the things I produced years ago when I was simply experimenting with things, as with this. Most of the other photos on the roll were blurs, too dark, or simply of questionable interest, then there is this.

Someday I may do the detailed pencil sketch I’ve always intended…for almost 40 years.

It’s also a dedication to a cat who changed my life. Here he was about two, and now he’s been gone over 25 years, but the memories of some moments still feel fresh.

Vintage Photos From Other Years

Fawn, Mid-bath, 1989

It’s too bad this photo is (more than) a little grainy or you’d see all the more clearly the annoyed torbie expression on Fawn’s face as she pauses in washing her belly to question my abridgment of her privacy.

That is the ubiquitous yellow gingham bedspread that’s in the portrait “Waiting for Mom”, just later that year when Fawn was a real grown-up. She was so sassy and self-possessed that I did follow her around for the interesting things she did and legendary facial expressions. She had the closest to tortitude of any tortie-type cat I ever lived with, and her ‘tude was all talk. She probably rolled around on the bed for a few minutes after her bath, talking to herself.

The room was always bright, and the sun coming in the windows backlit Fawn and other things, and the shadows are very deep and saturated, causing the graininess. But that’s why the cats all loved that room and I had so many photos of them on the bed from when we lived there.

Because these older photos are also time capsules of the moment, this in the house I rented before I moved here, in the last months I lived there, it’s fun to study what’s there. The photo was taken in November 1989, and I bought this house in October 1990. I still sleep in that bed, though the bedspread is long gone. But the cat pillow is there, the white cat with the turquoise bow on the brown gingham background that worked so well with my bedroom. You may have seen that in recent-day photos as it was on my bed for a while in older photos, and on the rocker in my bedroom and other rooms, then most recently on my desk chair here in my office. When I washed it last autumn it split open across the front and all the stuffing filled the washer. I haven’t stitched it up yet, but I will now that I’ve reorganized my sewing area.

Behind that is the vintage 1920s waterfall-style dresser, and on that, in the back, is my small framed photo of Bootsie with her collar on one corner and the ice skate lace that was her favorite toy. So much to remember.

A Skeptical Fawn, 1994

A skeptical Fawn indicates that I will not be interrupting her sunny repose with my silly toys. Fawn was a torbie and could seem a little cranky but she was all talk. As soon as I reached out to pet her that long black tabby tail was up in the air and the two orange stripes at the very tip were quivering with anticipation. When she sat, she always rested those two orange stripes over her orange-spattered paws.

This window at the top of the stairs was always a favorite, and this was soon after I’d moved in here, about 1994. I have a number of photos of her in the sunlight on this landing, on the windowsill, on the table, and even on the rocker in the studio where the sun reached in the morning. She was so happy in those moments. Later, as I wrote in “Taking Sally Home”, I sensed her spirit in the sunlight at the top of the steps. Until that moment, I had no idea how important it was to her. Even today when I look up the steps and see the sun at the top, I think of Fawn.

New Sunlight at the Doors, 2004

Sophie observes as I clean up the front porch on a late autumn afternoon.

Photographing through glass always softens things, and often odd reflections add interesting elements to the photo. Sophie was all about softness, with all that fur, and interesting elements with her babushka and dramatic eyeliner. The extra added artifacts from the glass and reflection make the photo look a little more vintage than it actually is.

These photos are more of autumn in black and white, as Sophie and Namir enjoy the new light coming in the front and back doors. The sun creeps to a lower and lower angle until the solstice, and the leaves fall from the trees until they are bare, and for a few short months we have sunshine in the house, glorious sunpuddles for kitties to enjoy. I had such a wonderful moment watching Namir enjoy the sun streaming in the back door into the kitchen just after breakfast. He couldn’t get enough of it, and I couldn’t get enough of him. It’s not a pivotal moment or even that uncommon, but I remember it and the bond we both felt in that simple moment I was photographing

I was photographing autumn in black and white to challenge what I see and what I think I know, to see the shapes and details and the compositions, leaving me with textures and patterns that are the foundations of my compositions. In this case they are all interiors, but amber sun, all the comforting warm tones, change to values of gray in black and white, but the light…the light is still that distinctive angle, nearly horizontal sometimes, highlighting details you might not notice in any other season. And this was black and white film, because there is nothing like black and white film, with lenses and filters, not digital shots with effects, so it was even more challenging than the immediate reassurance of checking the little display on my digital camera.

I found a box of black and white photos that I knew had existed but had been separated from the rest. They are from 2004 to 2006, so not terribly vintage, but because black and white processing became more and more difficult during those years I had to wait to see my photos. I found local film developers who would still do a few rolls and took several at once, then tucked them all together in a box and in my studio. Over the course of those three years, just before I bought my DSLR but still had a halfway decent Olympus digital, I went out to the garden, to my neighborhood, and to the trails with a roll or two of black and white film in October or November.

Sophie enjoyed the sun at the back door too, but instead of making her roll around in happiness, she let it soak in and went into deep contemplation. And she wants to know why I had to interrupt her contemplation.

Later on this roll, and likely later in the same day, Sophie came to the front door as I spent some time working outside. I have a few more things on the front porch right now, but I’ve gotten it down to the essentials for winter so we can get all that light onto the porch, and into the door.

Namir came along to check me too. I am never at a loss for supurrvision.

And just for fun, on the same roll I took photos of my street from the top and from the bottom. Just how steep is my street? This steep.

My house is that white one you can see the side of right about center. The spruce in front of it is the one that’s in my pictures outside my house.

Below, my street from the other end of the street that you see in the mid-left of the photo above. My house is just where the street starts to lift, about where the tallest tree that nearly touches the top of the photo is—that’s actually the maple that used to be in front of my house.

---

Photos From the Archives and Vintage Photos

Photos pulled “From the Archives” were taken by one or another digital camera of mine between 2002 and, well, yesterday, but usually they are older than that, and I had never had the chance to feature them. Vintage Photos are from my film archives back to 1983 when I purchased my Pentax K-1000 camera. They’re a fun way to “introduce” other members of my feline family who came and went before I began blogging, and to illustrate my feline family in general from days gone by.

---

Art and Gifts featuring cats you know! Visit Portraits of Animals

~~~

Feline Greeting Cards from Portraits of Animals!

This photograph was taken in 1983, when I first got my camera and began photographing with black and white film. Kublai, the kitty who rescued me in college and truly began my life as an animal artist, was only about two years old. Read more, and purchase.

---

---

Copyright

All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission, although links to your site are more than welcome and are shared. Please ask if you are interested in using and image or story in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of an image or a product including it, check my animal and nature website Portraits of Animals 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.

---

Subscribe to my e-newsletter

Subscribe to The Creative Cat Preview E-newsletter.

---

© 2009-2025 | www.TheCreativeCat.net | Published by Bernadette E. Kazmarski

Weekly schedule of features:

Sunday: Essays, Pet Loss, Poetry, The Artist’s Life

Monday: Adoptable Cats, TNR & Shelters

Tuesday: Rescue Stories

Wednesday: Commissioned Portrait or Featured Artwork

Thursday: New Merchandise

Friday: Book Review, Health and Welfare, Advocacy

Saturday: Your Backyard Wildlife Habitat, Living Green With Pets, Creating With Cats

And sometimes, I just throw my hands in the air and have fun!

 

PORTRAITS OF ANIMALS WEBSITE

FACEBOOK | X | LINKEDIN | PINTEREST | INSTAGRAM | THREADS | BLUESKY | YOUTUBE | SUBSTACK | EMAIL

HOME