Cranky cats invade Gallery 54
Submitted by tom Dwyer
Gallery 54
If you don’t like to laugh and smile a lot, you might want to avoid Gallery 54, here, for the month of September thanks to an invasion of Cranky Cats . . . NOT!
Using words like whimsical, humorous, and real personalities the creator of Cranky Cats, Cindy Schmidt, remarks that her cats just “showed up” in 2000 despite the fact that she began painting in 1995. Listening to her story you can imagine her cats have taken her on quite a ride ever since.
The opening for her show at Gallery 54’s September Guest Artist will be from 5 to 8 pm, Friday, Sept. 7. Despite that a group of cats is often referred to as a “glaring,” there will be nothing glaring about this how. With original acrylic paintings, mostly on stretched canvas, Cindy and guests of the gallery should be expecting a lot of “staring” however, since her cranky cats are sometimes hard to take your eyes off of.
Cindy starting painting like many painters, and only began her Cranky Cat Collection after recognizing the many personalities of cats, especially “those fuzzy little ones you see online,” she says. “I was attracted to their many funny and moody personalities and thought it would fun to paint them.” Initially, she expected to continue to create other paintings, but her cats began to take on a life of their own. At shows, she often does 17 or more a year, the reactions of people to her Cranky Cats made the whole experience enjoyable, she noted recently. “I don’t paint anything but my Cranky Cats these days,” she says.
Where do her ideas for different cats come from? “Some come from my cats, some from other cats I see and some even from personalities I recognize in people and embody in my cats. I guess I’m just weird,” she says with a friendly chuckle.
Her Cranky Cat paintings aren’t welcomed just by cat lovers. “I even have customers who while professing to not liking cats, still fall in love with one or more of my cranky cats paintings,” she says. People report that so many of her paintings are heartwarming, even non-cat-loving humans can relate to the creations.
Her best selling painting is titled Nervous Owls and depicts two owls on either side of a purple cat. Nervous? It must be something to do with the feather in the Cranky Cat’s mouth.
At the Sept. 7 opening of her Gallery 54 guest artist stint, Cindy will have original paintings, matted prints, notecards, as well as 6 inch square ceramic tiles (trivets).
As usual Gallery 54 will offer light refreshments and feature the music of guitarist and singer Jane Zell.
Gallery 54 is an artist owned gallery showcasing the work of Central New York artists. Gallery hours are Sunday through Thursday 10 to 5 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 10 to 6 p.m.
It also features an online store at Gallery54cny.net.
