This piece is created by me, Kathie Trela, and it is called Adopt Me(ow). Credit to A Cat's Life: Photographs of cute cats and kittens by Jane Burton for the prototype of the cat. It was created and edited in Adobe Photoshop. The date is February 7, 2012.
Adobe Photoshop was primarily used to create this, but Adobe Illustrator was used to do some editing on the image of the cat. It is a digital piece, but also a print. It is 16.3 inches by 8 inches. The headline typeface is Marketing Script and the smaller text typeface is Raleway. The subject of the piece is the cat, but the cat is representing all cute cats that were at the animal shelter. The secondary subject is me. Even though, I am not obviously anywhere on the piece, the phrase “Crap I am becoming a crazy cat lady” is representing me and my thoughts. It is a geometric piece because it is clean, has diagonal directions, simple color fields, it somewhat is symmetric, has a single use of graphic, a strong clear hierarchy, is simple, and there are not many elements.
I never really had a real job. For the most part, I worked for my dad and volunteered at some random organizations. Therefore, it was difficult for me to chose a ‘worst job’ because I never had a job. Nevertheless, I decided to do the project on the time when I volunteered at a cat shelter in the suburbs when I was in high school. I did not hate the job because I like cats, but I tried to think even deeper about some incidents of when I did not like volunteering there. Adopt Me(ow) is about a cat, who is representing all cats at the shelter. It is acting all cute and cuddly because it wants to be adopted. I am trying to illustrate that I like cats and all of these cats are being just so cute and I want to adopt all of them. Hence, the phrase “Crap I am becoming a crazy cat lady” is signifying that I want to adopt all of the cats and become a crazy cat lady. It is my worst job ever because I was becoming obsessed with the cats and wanting to adopt all of them. There are two perspectives in the piece where the graphic and the headline are the views of the cats and the small text in the foreground are my views.
The first draft for this piece was presented to the class and I received comments that the work was not really saying why it was my worst job. My first draft stated “Adopt Me” and next to it was “I wish I could.” People did not understand what that meant and how it related to the headline. The “I wish I could” statement did not create any narrative and it made my work static. Additionally, I got comments about the sad face. I only added that to add emotion and it was pretty cheesy. I deleted that text and sad face. I needed to add some way to show why “Adopt Me” is indicating the worst job ever. I hope the new phrase will make the viewer think and understand what I am trying to say, which is what I believe is the weakness of the piece. Perhaps, having a different image would of worked better. Nonetheless, the message I am sending is that I worked at a cat shelter. There were cute cats there that begged to be adopted. I was so vulnerable that I wanted to adopt all the cats and become a crazy cat lady. Therefore, it was the worst job because it made me feel sorry for the cats and I felt like it was my job to adopt them, hence becoming a crazy cat lady.
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