Gillyin Gatto - Machias, Maine USA
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Two Brown Tabbys
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Artist's comments ...
Gillyin Gatto
Two Brown Tabbys
The Mane Coon Cat is the official Maine State Cat. A number of interesting legends surround its origin. A wide-spread, but biologically impossible) belief is that it originated from matings between semi-wild, domestic cats and raccoons . This myth, bolstered by the bushy tail and the most common coloring a raccoon-like brown tabby, led to the adoption of the name "Maine Coon Cat". Originally only brown tabbys were called coon cats and cats of other colors called Maine shags. Now Maine Coon Cats are all colors, but they MUST possess three characteristics:
#1 a huge bushy tail, #2- a bushy ruff around neck, and #3- hair growing between toes and out of ears. Maine Coons are usually very large and very friendly. Another popular myth is that the Maine Coon Cat sprang from the six pet cats Marie Antoinette sent to Wiscasset, Maine, when she was planning to escape from France during the French revolution.The Cheshire Cat is a fictional cat popularized by Lewis Carroll's depiction of it in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland".
Alice first encounters the Cheshire Cat at the Dutchess' house in her kitchen, and then later outside on the branches of a tree, where it appears and disappears at will, engaging Alice in amusing but sometimes vexing conversation. The cat sometimes raises philosophical points that annoy or baffle Alice. It does, however, appear to cheer her up when it suddenly turns up at the Queen of Heart's croquet field. When sentenced to death it baffles everyone by having made its head appear without its body, sparking massive argument between the executioner and the King and Queen of Hearts about whether something that does not have a body, can indeed be beheaded. At one point the cat disappears gradually until nothing is left but its grin, prompting Alice to remark that she had often seen a cat without a grin, but never a grin without a cat.Both the Maine Coon cat and the Cheshire Cat are brown tabby
cats- sort of the long and short (hair) of it. I have loved more than both kinds. The models for my print were "Tommy"-an orange and white Maine Coon who had a perfectly round "feather boa" tail, and the Alice character, drawn by John Tenniel for Lewis Carroll, which seems to have become ubiquitous.
Comments: (I am choosing to spell tabbys wrong with an s)Gillyin Gatto
Machias, Maine, USAPaper Dimension: 10 x 7.5"
Image Dimension: 5 x 7 "
Block: Linoleum
Pigment or Ink: Gamblin Relief Ink-black
Paper: SUBI
Edition: unlimited