Wear Your Pug on Your Heart (or Your Sleeve)

Each year, I maintain my studio tradition of making a new ceramic pin design for my equine art collectors. As I have only been selling Pug art formally for two years, I have very few pin designs "out there". In 2009, I debuted two tie-tac molds in a wide array of art glaze colors. Those were the faces of my two ceramic miniatures, "Pug With Ball" and "Scratching Pug".



I also offered the face of "Invitation to Play" as a pin, in both realistic fawn and shaded black colourways. The pin was molded directly off of the wax clay original sculpture for detail integrity. They were only made last year, and sold out at the PDCA Nationals.





For 2010, two new pins in realistic colors will make the scene at the PDCA Nationals. These, unlike last years' pins, were specifically sculpted to be pins. The head pin is very earnest and sweet, with one side of its neck ruff highlighted. It resembles our Poots and her sister Lilly, who have wonderful worry-brows and are slightly "frog-faced".



The full body pin is based on multiple requests from last year: "Do one looking over its shoulder!" This one has the accompanying familiar expression, with the rolling eye. The traces (back stripe) vary from light to dark.



Perhaps, the draw of these ceramic pins is that previously, very few full-color tie tacs and brooches have been available. Most canine-themed jewelry is made of precious metals or tiny enamel portraits on white porcelain. Owners and handlers respond very positively to the full color glazed pins. Pug people are very fond of the richness and tone variation in their breed's two official colors. The art glaze tie tacs caused a lot of commotion, with customers making comparisons and choices based on handlers' apparel. Both pins and tacs make subtle but classy accents in presentation, and I am very happy to fill a need.

Even as the first two tests were hot out of the kiln this weekend, I couldn't resist pinning one on my husband and one on myself.

Pug Portrait

After a packed week of events for my biggest art trade show of the year, we packed up our Pugs and took a short vacation to Nashville, TN. That trade show is why I haven't posted in so long; I had no time to spare playing online. It was the perfect antidote to the previous few months' long hours and stress. With the girls safely lounging in the hotel room air conditioning, we went out in search of local antique stores and good food. We found both, but this post is about the Pug we found.

In one large antique mall, I rounded a corner and saw what looked like a cheesy Pug mini-poster, framed in an even cheesier gold-accent frame. I pulled it off the wall and discovered it was neither. The frame was cracked with genuine age, and it was no poster. This was a professional 12 x 14" portrait photograph by Delbridge Studio of Murfreesboro, TN, with its original paper frame backing still in place.



My first thought was, "Someone truly loved this Pug." It must have been just as costly as a human portrait at the time, such a large framed print; no expense was spared. It had been in-studio retouched to perfect the black face mask. Someone wanted this portrait to be right. Of all the proof shots, this one, the unusual profile with open mouth, was selected for the big print and frame job. It must have been panting under those hot studio lights, as the finger to touch the "Yawn Button" (on the chin of Pugs) would not have had time to get out of frame. Imagine what cultured guests at the owner's home must have thought:
"Why is your purebred portrait screaming? Or choking?"
What an odd and purposeful pose choice. This Pug meant something to someone. Perhaps she was a treasured show bitch, that the owner drove from a distance to have professionally photographed? I wanted to research her identity, when she spiced her owner's life, and if her line is still going strong. I couldn't just leave her there, unloved, in that shop. Twelve bucks well spent.



Some people ask me why I do so many non-portrait posed Pug items. Now I wish I could give them the Delbridge Studio phone number, and let him or her explain. There is so much more to Pugs and our lives with them than just a typical snapshot.