"Sam"

Oil on museum quality, archival ampersand gessobord™ panel - 8” x 8”

This is Sam, or should I say was Sam.  Sam died last July 30th at the age of 14-1/2. He was diagnosed with cancer of the mouth when he was 10.  His owner was told that half of his jaw needed to be removed but she couldn't do it since the prognosis was that he would only live another 12 months even with the surgery.  She ended up taking him to a conventionally trained Cornell vet who practiced homeopathy too.  With a simple cryosurgery procedure and Chinese herb treatments, he lived another 4-1/2 years and is now one of very few documented canine cancer successes.  It was heart failure that finally took him out.   The original reference was of him sitting on a garden bench in the bright sun.  I chose to let my inner fashion illustrator come out and gave Sam the Richard Avedon/Irving Penn grey-seamless treatment.  His fuzzy free spirit is thus unencumbered by all the extraneous, distracting elements.