Cats and dogs

What’s missing from this picture?

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When you think of a farm, one of the first images that may come to mind are the omnipresent barn cats or farm dogs. Margit had known her share of such animals. She mentions several in her memoir. And the white Angora cat they called “Doo-Doo” was a fixture in their household for XX years — from the 1950s until they moved down into the town of Houston in 1972. That’s almost all of Margit’s painting career.

So you may think Margit would include a number of cats and dogs in her paintings, right? If so, you’d be wrong.

There’s no record of a single cat showing up in all her paintings. (If you know of one, please let us know!) There IS a record of a dog, though we don’t have a picture of it at present. One of Margit’s paintings (65-15) is recorded as “Overland home + dog”.

At right, Palmer treats their cat Doo-Doo in the same highchair that his own kids (and many grandkids) had eaten in.

We’re pretty sure Palmer would have enjoyed watching cute kitten videos if he had lived to see the Internet.

Did Palmer and Margit dote on their cat? Palmer and Margit’s children remember being told that if they didn’t like their supper, they could go to the neighbors. So they ribbed their parents when they found out that, when Doo-Doo didn’t care for what they served, they ran to town to try a different brand of cat food.

So why didn’t Margit ever paint a cat, much less their beloved Doo-Doo?

  • add picture of kittens in Tarkjel’s stone kubbestol?
  • mention names of dogs from memoir & quote(s) re the cat?
  • conjecture why c&d don’t appear in paintings?