When I attended UC Davis in the early 70's, it was important to have a personal mythology utilizing a constant image. A sense of humor was a necessary tool. Robert Arneson was pursuing his self-portrait busts, David Gilhooly was into frogs, and Deborah Butterfield had begun her celebrated horse imagery. After sculptural bouts with the cigarette and petroleum industries, and Hollywood westerns, I turned to my Labrador Retriever, Renaissance, in the late 70's, told him to "Sit," and the Aaron Canine Mythology began and is alive and sitting well more than twenty years and 2800 images later. That's more than 140 dog years.

Dogs make grand personal mythology without having to tackle self-portraiture. Obvious observations are that they are faithful, protective, humorous without trying to be and exude true love without the expectation it being returned. Samuel Butler once said, "the great thing about a dog is that you can make a fool of yourself and he will gladly join in..."

Dog eat dog, treated like a dog (which is usually pretty good), work like a dog (which, in most cases, isn't very hard); the concept of enthusiasm over intelligence are notions that fuel the work.