An Act of Dog: Wall of Shame, Portrait of Hope

“One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is just a statistic,” goes the old Stalin quote. It is easy for most to consider the statistics of an estimated 4-5 million shelter pets euthanized annually in the United States with a sigh and maybe “So sad,” before moving on to what's for lunch. Would it be so easy to dismiss if we had to look each animal  in the eyes and contemplate its fate?

Confronted with the portrait of a healthy-looking dog as adoring and adorable as the one at home or next door, to read its name, and the exact date it was euthanized for no good reason, could we as a nation continue to abide high-kill shelters? These are the questions that have prompted artist Mark Barone and conflict coach Marina Dervan to abandon lucrative careers for two years, establish the 501(c)3 non-profit, An Act of Dog, and create a project to raise public awareness and $20 million for no-kill shelters in America.

Barone is painting 12” X 12” portraits of 5500 unrescued shelter dogs—a conservative estimate of the number of dogs euthanized daily in U.S. shelters—with the name of the dog and date it was euthanized on each. The Mission on An Act of Dog website states it best:  “We are creating 5500 paintings of those individual dogs, whose loyal spirits were needlessly killed. No longer alive to be ‘man’s best friend,’ because we failed to be their best friend. And even though we have chosen to paint Dogs, our goal is that all animals in shelters, including Cats and Rabbits, will be saved.” When the portraits are completed, Dervan will organize the 5500 paintings in an exhibit, creating a wall 10 feet high and spanning the length of two football fields, along with a “dogumentary” about shelter animals and the deep emotional and physical impact of animals on humans.

The fund-raising will occur in two phases—sponsorship and ownership. In phase one, you can sponsor the painting of an individual dog, and your donation will provide paint materials, photography supplies, and website maintenance for the project. (Dervan and Barone are receiving no personal compensation from donations and are living off their savings while creating the portraits, exhibit, and “dogumentary”.) In the second phase, the portraits will be sold to raise the $20 million that will be donated to no-kill organizations for medical care, rehabilitation, and critical care of shelter animals.

Barone and Dervan started the project in Santa Fe, but relocated when Louisville, KY donated space that would accommodate the production phase. The location of the final exhibit—anticipated for summer 2013—has not yet been determined. Barone and Dervan are in talks with a dozen interested cities.

To learn more about An Act of Dog, see the video below, check out their website at http://www.anactofdog.com, and join their Facebook page. To experience a bit of the impact the upcoming An Act of Dog exhibit will have, go to the website where Mark Barone gets the pictures for his portraits http://www.dogsindanger.com. Look at a single picture. Look into those eyes. And then multiply that times 5500.
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All images by Mark Barone