Geisha Billie & Dam Beagle

In February I emailed my friend Julie’s artist husband Chet: “I have your Japanese beagle print and would love to also have one for my other dog. Billie is a mutt but looks mostly like a greyhound, and I like the background of the greyhound print, with the pink blossoms - she is a girly dog. How difficult would it be for you to change the color of the gray greyhound in your design to a reddish-brown? Her ears are a bit larger than a greyhound's and don't really droop - they are either up or back, but they're close enough that if the color of the dog was changed, it would look like her. Am I the goofiest dog-owner customer you know? Sorry...”

Chet was so great – he said I had a long way to go to achieve Goofiest Dog-Owner Customer and he quickly put together a Japanese-styled portrait of my girl dog that my cousin Amy and I refer to as Geisha Billie. Taking the silliness further, we have identified characteristics of Billie’s we find geisha-like (not that we know much about geishas besides the occasional novel or romantic movie): She is supple, gentle, gracious, accommodating, quiet, obedient when she thinks we want her to be.

I didn’t have QUITE enough dog art so trolled allposters.com with the key word “beagle.” Uh-oh, I hit a treasure trove of classic photos of LBJ’s beagles. I talked myself out of the black & white shot of dogs w/LBJ wearing a 10-gallon hat and the Life Magazine cover of “Him and Her,” creatively named Johnson dogs in front of the White House. The one I chose was Francis Miller’s “Pet Beagles of President Lyndon B. Johnson, Sitting Together in White House Sitting Room.” It hangs behind our ½ bath/laundry room door so few people ever see it, but I enjoy it. It’s a great balance for a Lonnie Duka photo I bought, “Beagle Dog at Lake Powell.”

Let’s just say that when Craig uses that bathroom, he keeps the light off.