Quint answers your questions – 2015 © Colehauscats.com

Good morning! I thought, since I’m the only ManCat here at Colehaus, and one of the few cats who aren’t still skittish from the extra noisy Fourth of July weekend around here, I’d take this morning to answer some email questions my mom and dad have received about me, my painting, and things in general. Feel free to comment or ask them anything. They’re pretty good folks that way.

Let’s begin with the big colorful elephant in the room – my painting. Everyone wants to know why a video of me painting doesn’t exist. “Internet Gold,” everyone says. “You’ll become famous,” everyone says. Everyone wants video proof that I, Quint, do indeed paint on my own terms and conditions. I assure you I do paint and like to do so about once or twice every six weeks but as for getting my process on film, that’s more complicated.

My mom and dad don’t own a video camera. The one they borrowed while The Niblets were baby kittens was on its last shaky leg and crossed the camera bridge long ago. They don’t even own a cell phone if you can believe that in this day and age, and to hear my dad talk, he doesn’t ever want to own one either. I know it might be hard to understand but it’s just his quirk, just like my quirk is to paint, I guess.

Beyond that, they say, a video camera doesn’t fit into our current strict budget, and as for becoming famous, my mom has already been blamed for taking advantage of me and my hobby and lost friends over rather nasty things passed on about her liking cats too much. All I want to do is paint when I feel like it, and with my approval, all my mom wants to do is help cats in need with the sale of my art. For some people, that’s hard to understand or accept.

Don’t bother Quint when he’s painting – 2015 © Colehauscats.com

There’s no way I’d entertain an audience other than my mom or dad while painting. I’m just not much of a new people-cat that way. My mom tries her best to take photos of me while I’m working but I’ll only put up with that for so long. Mom says I’m difficult, but I believe an artist has his limitations and cameras interfere with the creative process. Here’s a good rendition of the look I give her when I’ve had enough of her camera. No painting happens beyond this point, just this look. I could sit this way for hours if need be. Trust me on this.

Practice makes purr-fect – 2015 © Colehauscats.com

That’s not to say I always clam up when she gets clicking away while I paint. I like practice painting and usually, I let her get a few camera shots in.

Quint doesn’t like baby talk – 2015 © Colehauscats.com

As long as she doesn’t make mushy-voice sounds that distract me. I don’t like that very much. I’m a cat, mom, not a teensy baby.

Question: You live in a very brown house. All your blog photos contain shades of brown – walls, furniture, blankets. We would think you’d be inspired by the color brown yet we’ve never seen you use that color in your paintings. Don’t you think that’s odd?

Nope.

Question: You’re the only boy cat at Colehaus now with quite the harem of sister cats. Do you miss having a brother?

I’m not sure my sisters would like being called a harem but you’d have to take that up with them. Good luck with that! MOL! I don’t mind being the only ManCat (who said I was a boy cat??) and probably wouldn’t mind a brother but my mom says we’re a full house and at our absolute limit. Hmmm, the words, “absolute limit” don’t appear to be anywhere in my cat dictionary….

Question: How many of you eight Colehaus Cats get along? Who doesn’t like who?

Miss Newton, Zuzu, and Tessa – 2015 © Colehauscats.com

Good question! If we were to make up a chart of who got along with who and who didn’t, it would take someone smarter than mom and someone with more time on his hands than my dad. Let’s see if this helps:

Viola likes everyone but Tessa.
Viola loves Mom and Quint.

Question: Is Tessa a troublesome Tuxie or just a misunderstood lover of extreme sports?

Tuxie Tessa – 2015 © Colehauscats.com

Troublesome? Hmmm, sometimes. She doesn’t like to play as hard with me as she used to. I mean, Tessa taught me how to use whapping paws! Now she doesn’t like those. She was troublesome, my mom says, when she was the Pee Queen last year but she seemed to get over that phase a few months ago. My dad says yes, Tessa loves extreme sports if you mean surfing down the bannister, sticking her nose into hot pans on the stove, and promising to leap over the abyss down to the foyer floor some twenty feet below. She’d have us believe these are no big deals but the rest of us aren’t buying Kool-Aid from her stand.

Question: How hard is it living with eight cats? Isn’t there fur on everything?

My mom says life with eight cats isn’t hard if one has the home designed for it. She says she is thankful our house has rugs and not carpet, laminate floors and not hardwood or vinyl, a central vacuum cleaner that is used often, and that nothing is out on display that can’t be scratched, knocked over, broken, or replaced, not that any of us would know anything about that.

Oopsie! – 2015 © Colehauscats.com

But sometimes accidents happen. For example, we consider it an accident that our mom left this pot of flowers unattended. Our mom, she’s a work in progress.

Quint – 2015 © Colehauscats.com

Well, that’s all the questions I can answer for now. I’ve been itching to get some more painting time in so I need to let my mom know by smearing up the bathroom mirror again. Have a good Monday and a good week ahead!

Quint’s sign to paint – 2014-2015 © Colehaus Cats