VANCOUVER — This is a story about a little dog named Guess, and the big potential of her sticks. “Early on, we found out she has a propensity to lift very large sticks,” Carrie Walker says, while her rat terrier walks in front of her carrying a small log. Like many proud pup parents, Carrie started capturing Guess’s accomplishments on video, documenting how the dog could pick up sticks up to eight feet long with her mouth and walk with them. “I thought it was really impressive, her strength and determination,” Carrie smiles. Carrie encountered so many other people who were inspired to see the little dog pursuing her big dreams that she began posting the videos on social media. “I think it’s just a laugh,” Carrie smiles. “A little nugget of joy.” And that could have been the end of it until the sticks that Guess deposited at the end of the driveway after every walk grew into an impressive pile. Carrie — who’s a professional artist — found the dog’s creation unexpectedly inspiring. “I just thought, I’m going to draw one [of her sticks],” Carrie says. “But then I think that’s such a dumb idea.” Carrie thought serious artists don’t do silly things like draw dog sticks, before considering how Guess didn’t always succeed in picking up a big stick, but never failed to try. “I took my cue from Guess,” Carrie says. Carrie started her drawings by placing paper on top of a stick and rubbing it with charcoal, to capture its general texture. “I found them really beautiful,” Carrie says. And then she spent hours using a pencil to document every specific detail of the stick, from the moss growing on it, to the meandering grooves created from a bug eating it. “Drawing was like travelling through the world contained in the stick,” Carrie says. And by the time she’d completed almost a dozen stick drawings, Carrie was invited to exhibit them at an art gallery to display her little dog’s big inspiration. “[Guess] is not questioning her impulse. Her impulse is, you pick up a stick, you take it home,” Carrie explains. “In that way, she really did inspire me. You follow your impulse. I’ll follow mine.” And now that Carrie’s art is being displayed on the gallery walls with the actual sticks that inspired them, her idea to draw them no longer seems silly. Because during these often-troubling times, what could be more serious than simply striving to make people smile? “It’s a moral responsibility,” Carrie smiles before Guess drops her stick and races up the front stairs towards the gallery door. “To share that joy with people if you can.”
