The Cat Who Wanted To Be A Woman

Cast, cut painted glass shapes wall mounted through machine stitched background of multiple colored threads, 24x40", 2018

La Fontaine’s version of this story has a man loving his cat so much that he pleads with Fate to turn her into a woman.  Aesop had it the other way round.  His cat was in love with a man and prayed to Venus to change her into a woman so she could try to “win his affections”.

In any case the cat becomes a woman and the man does marry her.  On their wedding night a mouse scurries across the bedroom and the cat-woman cannot deny her nature.  She makes an uncanny leap for the mouse and surprises the groom by capturing her prey.  Worse, she begins to gnaw on the creature and toss it around as cats will do.

The horrified young man turns and runs from his new wife and never returns.