After being adopted into a forever home in June 2018, Max the Jack Russell terrier now spends his days sitting in the limelight. Max, 9, was adopted by Charlie Van Gilder and Mary O’Shaughnessy, both working artists who teach at the Port Townsend School of the Arts and show their work at the PTSA Gallery and Northwind Arts Center. “We met him on June 7, and he is a keeper,” Van Gilder said. “We have had three other Jack Russells and three Australian shepherds. All have been very intelligent and affectionate working pups and have shown up in our artwork: photos, painting, prints, collage and even sculpture. “Throughout my life I have felt very fortunate to be employed in the arts,” Van Gilder said. During a recent afternoon Max sat atop a potter’s wheel in front of a picture window in Van Gilder’s studio, coaxed with a liberal quantity of treats into sitting still long enough for a quick sketch. “Pets make great models,” Van Gilder said. “They seem to like the attention.” Van Gilder has a soft spot in his heart for Jack Russells, as evident in art strewn about his home art studio. “Jack Russells are smart, highly inquisitive, energetic and affectionate,” he said. Van Gilder is a drawing and sculpture teacher who has taught anatomy in his classes to help students create more accurate pieces, he said. “I taught ceramics, drawing, painting, and art history at the college and high school levels,” he said. “Studying art history is a great way to know the history of being human. It is my life long passion, I guess.” Van Gilder began his art career as a young boy. “I have always made art, at least since I was 2. I think art, in the largest meaning of the word, is one of the most human activities.”