Tillie the dog’s ‘art’ fetches up to $1,000

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, June 9, 2004

NEW YORK – You think Eddie, the Jack Russell terrier from “Frasier,” was talented? Ha! All he had to do was sit there and look cute on cue – and his show isn’t even on television anymore.

Tillie – now there’s a dog with some real bite.

The 5-year-old Jack Russell is an artist who has had her paintings exhibited in New York, Los Angeles and Europe. She recently opened a gallery and store in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, the borough’s epicenter of all things artsy and hip.

Her intense scratch marks – in red, blue, yellow and black – have drawn comparisons to such abstract artists as Jackson Pollock and Cy Twombly.

You may be wondering, how does a creature with non-opposable thumbs accomplish such a hands-on craft? Well, she gets a little help from Bowman Hastie, her human companion, who discovered her talent when she was just 6 months old.

Hastie, a 35-year-old writer, noticed Tillie pawing furiously at one of his notepads one day. “She really had a sense of focus and determination. She was honing in on the surface,” he says. “I was amazed by it.”

As an experiment, he put a piece of carbon paper in front of her, and faster than you could say Pablo Picasso, an artist was born.

Now Tillie – whose full name is Tillamook Cheddar – has developed her technique over the years. Hastie takes a piece of pigmented paper and places it face-down on another sheet of paper that’s mounted onto a mat board. Tillie then takes this canvas in her mouth and carries it to her workspace, where she nibbles and claws at it feverishly.

Whatever is left on the canvas is her final creation – though she gets so carried away sometimes, she ends up destroying her own work.

At the recent opening of Tillie Ltd., though, she showed a far more cordial disposition. The 18-pound pup – who has white, wiry fur with brown-and-black markings around her mischievous, dark eyes – was more like a social butterfly.

She trotted between the small, spare, concrete-floored storefront – where her original oil paintings mounted on the walls sell for $1,000 – and the sidewalk outside, where visitors perused a table piled with T-shirts featuring her designs. She greeted friends and fans by wagging her tail and begging sweetly for the nuggets of cheese for which she’s named.

Tillie just returned from a trip to Belgium and the Netherlands, where her paintings were on display in solo exhibitions. She also has had her work shown at galleries throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Hastie is still writing – he recently put together a collection of essays called “Confessions of a Dog Artist’s Assistant” – but he’s looking forward to the day when Tillie is his main source of income.

“My only goal is for my dog to support me,” he said. “I’ve carried her for five years – that’s 35 dog years. She can carry me for the next 35 years.”

Associated Press

The artistic dog Tillamook Cheddar, or Tillie for short, creates a piece of art during the grand opening of Tillie Ltd. June 2 in New York.

Notice the sensitive claw work in one of Tillie’s art pieces.

On the Web

Of course Tillie has a Web site where you can see her artistic abilities. Be sure to check out the “Dog Bless America” series. www.tillamookcheddar.com