All Blue Cats

Artist's Statement:

Origin stories: In the early 80s I dreamed that I saw a blue cat, laying contentedly underwater, in a small stream near my home. I did a painting of it, and more followed. When Jesse Rivera and I decided to join forces and form Rivera-Dutton Sculpture Studio, one of the first things that we made were Blue Cats, cut out of car hoods. Those Blue Cats paid our bills and helped us get our studio up and running.

Some years ago LexArts sponsored an invitational sculpture show and we made a Blue Cat for it. The sculpture was placed in front of The Hope Center for Women, on Versailles Road. It was well received, and the City of Lexington purchased it as a permanent installation. It was very meaningful to us to hear women at the Hope Center speak about their love for the Blue Cat, and soon after we were asked to make a sculpture for Sky Hope, the Women’s Hope Center in Somerset, our home town.

When LexArts invited us to do a show in their space downtown, the Blue Cat was the first thing that popped into mind, and we wondered what it would be like to focus on that image entirely. Thus we decided to title the show All Blue Cats.

Once we began work on the concept the image opened up in unexpected and surprising ways, leading our attention back to the first civilization on this continent - the Olmecs. 3,500 years ago, the cat, the most powerful native cat, in the form of a jaguar, was at the center of art, fused with the imagery of rain, and the corn that their civilization was founded on.

By coincidence a new friend who was working with us on another project. Manuel Rosario, from the Olmec homeland of Veracruz, saw a bag of heirloom corn sent to us by food historian and advocate for heirloom food plants, Dr. David Shields. Manuel volunteered to help plant it in the traditional way he learned when he was a young. We made a planting stick and planted a corn field. The morning when we saw the first tiny tube like sprouts of the corn emerge, each one contained a tiny orb of dew, and in my mind’s eye each droplet contained a tiny Blue Cat.

In Kentucky the image of the Blue Cat has an additional resonance. It is a coincidence in this case that blue wildcats are the symbol of UK sports, and though it was not the origin of our design, we welcome the association, and hope that UK fans will enjoy it. It is another coincidence for this show that the Olmecs, a name bestowed to them by their neighbors, means “rubber people” - because amongst their other amazing contributions to our lives they were the first to discover and vulcanize rubber, make balls with it, and invent the first ballgame. Could there be a better place than Kentucky for this image to re-emerge?

In creating this show we have the hope of seed planters, that what we have done will grow and nurture our community. Blessed as we are in the midst of so much beauty and abundance, we would like that nurture to include those challenged by homelessness and substance abuse. That is the work of The Hope Center, and if seeing what we create will encourage support for what they do, then it is well done. Ten percent of sales from All Blue Cats will be donated to The Hope Center, and we plan to utilize any media attention the show may bring to spread the good word about the essential services that the Hope Center provides.

When I imagine the Blue Cats, I see them as baby water jaguars - released from the rain drops to hop about on the corn blades. The ancient Olmecs well understood the power and importance of water in our lives, how it sustains us, and the plants and animals we depend on to survive. We think of our work as being part of an emerging eco-culture - devoted to preserving, protecting and celebrating the sources of life, and the beauty that they generate.