She’s been an Internet celebrity, morning show guest, South by Southwest star and magazine cover girl. And now, Tardar Sauce aka “Grumpy Cat,” the sourpuss that’s spawned a million memes, can add a new role to the list: Artist’s muse.
Over 30 artists at Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment in Huntsville, Alabama, are contributing to “The Grumpy Cat Art Project,” a collection of artworks inspired by the famous feline and her frown. These artistic interpretations of the cat, made out of anything from painted glass to chainmaille, will be auctioned off online from May 27 to May 31. Proceeds from the project will go towards various programs and a children’s playground at the art center, which provides studio space for 100 working artists.
“The main idea was to get people’s attention,” Dustin Timbrook, the project’s brainchild, told TODAY.com. “We knew Grumpy Cat would grab plenty of people, and she’s an expressive subject.”
Artist Erin Michael captured that famous expression in a chainmaille “painting” made with over 1,300 metal rings in a variety of colors.
“The ring-by-ring assembly for chainmaille is the same that’s been around since the days of the knights, but using a palette of colors is creating it in an innovative way,” she said in an email. “It’s bit tedious, but since I've already done a number of chainmaille paintings, including my version of ‘The Scream,’ I figured this was the perfect way to contribute to the project.”
Hers isn’t the only work with medieval influences. Glass-painter Judson Portzer created a portrait of Tardar Sauce as a knight, with the moniker “Sir Grumpsalot” underneath.
“I didn’t realize that Grumpy Cat was a girl,” he chuckled.
Portzer loves cats and has two of his own, so he was eager to come up with something inspired by the Internet's favorite feline.
Of course, not everyone around the Mill had heard of Grumpy Cat when Timbrook first proposed the idea. Let’s just say some of these artists are more into working with their hands than with the click of a mouse.
But as is to be expected, Tardar Sauce won them over soon after Timbrook passed around a few photos. And the rest is Grumpy Cat art history.
Take a look at more of their creations below:
