Gallery reception: Tillamook Cheddar

The artist’s primary process is a dynamic color transfer technique. In preparation for each of Tillie's works, her assistants assemble a touch-sensitive recording device by affixing pigment-coated vellum to a block of watercolor paper. The artist takes the prepared “canvas” in her mouth and brings it to her workspace. Working on the outside surface, she applies pressure with teeth and claws in a methodic ritual marked by dramatic shifts in tempo and intensity. The resultant sharp and sweeping intersecting lines complement the artist’s delicate paw prints and subtle tongue impressions, composing an expressionistic image that is revealed on the paper beneath when she is finished. She works with shocking intensity, sometimes to the point of destroying her creations.

In July 2005 the artist gave birth to six healthy puppies. One of her sons, Doc Chinook Strongheart Cheddar, continues to live with her. Thus far, Doc has not followed his mother in her artistic forays.

Tillie’s first official biography, Portrait of the Dog as a Young Artist by F. Bowman Hastie III, was published by Sasquatch Books in 2006.

“The most successful living animal painter.”
—The Art Newspaper (London; October 2005)