By Ed Adamczyk/Contributor
The big event in veterinary waiting rooms, lately, has been an opportunity for children to draw their pets, or to decorate a coloring book-style drawing of a dog or cat. The resulting artwork, all 1,800 examples, has been combined into a photo mosaic to benefit the Pet Emergency Fund.
“It was a total staff endeavor,” said Dr. Pete Freyburger, managing director of the Brighton-Eggert Animal Center in the Town of Tonawanda. “The receptionist encouraged children to draw a picture of their pet while waiting. Adults, too.”
The project took place in the 67 clinics that belong to the Niagara Frontier Veterinary Society, with the additional involvement of about 800 art and pet enthusiasts in local schools. Each drawing was then shrunk to below-postage stamp size and used, mosaic fashion, to form a picture of a buffalo, copies of which will be sold as framed art and as note cards to support the Pet Emergency Fund. The unveiling of the work took place Tuesday at Medaille College, before an assembly of vets, pet lovers, dogs and cats. The school has a notable veterinary technician’s program.
Brian Nestline, the artist and designer responsible for organizing the drawings into a coherent work of art, also produced “Faces of Buffalo”, which used the same medium of merging thousands of small pictures into a single large one.
“It’s a way of bringing the region together,” he said.
Pet Emergency Fund president Dr. Timm Otterson pointed out the artwork included “dogs, cats, snakes, fish, birds, horses, snakes and dinosaurs,” and that the Fund, celebrating its 10th anniversary, has provided care to over 2,300 pets and distributed over $250,000 to help people with financial needs in Erie and Niagara Counties afford pet care in emergency situations.
Copies of the artwork will be available at local hospitals and at veterinary clinics. To view the piece or order a copy on-line, visit http://www.petemergencyfund.org/
