Art House Coop ~ The Animal Chronicle Project

My parents were big into the whole nature thing when I was a kid: camping, hiking, nature walks, etc.

  Instead of trips to Disney World, we went to the Sleeping Bear Dunes and stayed at a campsite with classes for children that taught about ecosystems (ask my Dad to tell you the story of how I impressed the instructors with my knowledge of vultures, he loves that one).  While my classmates were at home watching Darkwing Duck after school, I was in the woods with my Dad learning the difference between a pine and a spruce tree.  I've always been good at spotting animals, but no one has ever been impressed by that skill until Patrick.  He says its like a Disney Princess skill.  If only the animals would sing and clean for me, too...
(photo by Disney)

The most recent thing from Art House Coop was the Chronicle Project.  They asked artists to document a single day of their lives with a visual record.  I had a difficult time deciding what aspect to record: things I said, food eaten, people I came in contact with....   During a walk with Patrick on the trail by our apartment yesterday, I suddenly knew what I sould record: all of the animals I see in a twenty four hour period!  I went to bed with the camera on my nightstand and used it first thing this morning to snap a picture of sleepy Puma.  I kept it in my purse and took pictures everywhere: at work, while running, outside the ice cream place, and in the mall parking lot.  Patrick is right: I notice a lot of animals.
Whenever our family went off on a hike, I would always stop to look at the Parks & Rec bulletin board in the parking lot covered with maps, brochures and notices.  I put all the animal pictures together to resemble on of those nature brochures.  Here's my project, chronicling all the animals I saw on May 14th:

The only thing I love more than animals are animals wearing clothes.  I know its kind of a form of torture, but I secretly love to put weird stuff on my cats and watch them stumble around.  If you share this feeling, check out stuffonmycat.com for a good laugh.  My clothing items of choice are a polo shirt and a Captain Jack Sparrow pirate hat (both made for small dogs to wear).  Here is a very forgiving Dora wearing a pink ribbon I found.
Her Disney skill is looking like Marie from the Aristocats.

This is what Dora is thinking in the photo above ------>
...or maybe she's thinking "Get this piece of crap off me," 

(image from www.fanpop.com)