Molly Dickinson

Art Piece Reflection

For this piece, I wanted to explore the character of Newt and his obsession with cats cradle. There is a
scene in the Cats Cradle where the main character of the book has a discussion with Newt and the
painting that he made, Newts painting was small and black and warty. It consisted of scratches made in
a black, gummy impasto. The scratches formed a sort of spiders web, and I wondered if they might not
be the sticky nets of human futility hung up on a moonless night to dry (164). I wanted to create this
painting, or at least what I thought it looked like because I wanted to connect with the idea more.
Newt says that his painting resembles a cats cradle which, in his opinion, is a metaphor for an illusion,
something that does not actually exist. While creating this piece, I incorporated this idea by including No
damn cat. No damn cradle. I chose to have the background look like the universe and had the earth be a
tiny dot to symbolize how small and insignificant we are in the immense universe. In the novel, Newt
says that religions, sciences and governments are all cats cradles, in that humans seek comfort in these
systems, but may not find it. With my piece, Im trying to convey the same idea, but on a larger scale:
Can we always rely on the earth to survive? How can we save ourselves from the disastrous future we
face due to our consumption of resources? Can we really rely on living in space as a means of escaping
our inevitable end?
As I said, I was inspired by Newts painting in the book and I implore everyone to heed Newts words as
the look at my painting, It means whatever it means. This piece can be interpreted how it may.