Lost Cat Series

The Lost Cat series began around 2018 with me installing small, spray-painted wooden cutouts of cats on telephone poles around Key West, Florida. Placed at the bottom of the pole on ground level, I wanted them just out of your sight line, so as not to be too noticeable - a nice surprise for anyone passing by that happened to glance down and look a bit more closely. The story of its origin goes back a little further than this, and its future…well that’s yet to be known, as it’s turned into an endless source of inspiration for me. These cats are curious, and do seem to have 9 lives.

I Married a Cat Lady

In 2017 my then fiance actually made the sincere statement ‘I wish the boys could be at our wedding’. So I created life sized stenciled art pieces of her cats and placed them at our wedding spot near the ‘aisle’, surprising her as she walked past. From these pieces, the idea of creating a street art campaign featuring some of the commonly seen Key West creatures was born. While I liked creating illustrations of animals, it lacked something - an element of humor - which is typically a big inspiration for my work.

What The Fishbowl

These curious creatures are always getting into things they shouldn’t. The vision of a fishbowl falling on one of the cat’s heads didn’t seem so far-fetched, and once I sketched it out, the ‘WTF’ was here to stay. The cats have found themselves in other sticky situations - bird houses, pitchers of lemonade and sangria, and headphones have all made limited runs - but the fishbowl remained the main focus, and was the original wooden cut out to land on the streets of Key West. Placed on telephone poles around town, these life-sized cats fit right into island street life. Maybe too much so…

Lost Cat

Cats are a (mostly) celebrated resident on the island, and with a little time, these wooden cats would end up going ‘missing’ - apparently passersby decided the felines were up for adoption and wanted to give them a new forever home. I found it all amusing and decided to put up missing cat posters in their place. Featuring the illustration of only the face inside the fishbowl accompanied by ‘Lost’ (which seemed a more fitting descriptor for these adventurous guys than ‘Missing’) and there we have it - our ‘Lost Cat’ poster and what led to the name ‘Lost Cat Series’. Eventually we find these lost cats replacing their fishbowls with space helmets, and blasting off into other directions such as ‘Meowter Space’, the ‘Flying Saucer’, as well as the ‘Catsronaut’.

And Beyond

The pandemic gifted me with a lot of free time, as well as the urge to put some positive energy into the universe. Inspired by pop art and the expansive culture around toy collections, the Lucky Cat and Buddha additions were created. Initially as a series of stickers that I sent out to friends, artists and small businesses as a simple way to share a message of good luck and fortune in such odd times, the series has continued to expand to encompass other fun items throughout the years. I find I’m continuously inspired to create new designs, taking the lost cat beyond the fishbowl, and testing the limits of 9 lives.