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First-time artist honors dedicated Read to Rover volunteers

Sparky, from the art exhibit honoring the “Read to Rover” program’s 10th anniversay, by Christie Johnson.
Sparky, from the art exhibit honoring the “Read to Rover” program’s 10th anniversay, by Christie Johnson.
Image courtesy of Julie Read
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Visitors to Port Townsend’s Elevated Ice Cream Co. in the next two months will be greeted by the faces of 23 dogs. 

And not just any dogs. The series of portraits currently lining the shop’s walls celebrates the dedicated volunteers of Chimacum Creek Primary School’s “Read to Rover” program, as well as the life of one of the artists, for whom this series was a labor of love. 

The art show is the culmination of a three-year project by Kim Pratt, the school-based coordinator of Chimacum Creek’s Read to Rover program for the past 11 years. As the program neared its 10th anniversary in 2018, Pratt wanted to honor the dedicated four legged volunteers of the Rover program, and their humans who visit the school once a week to help first- and second-graders learn to read.

And what better way to honor the volunteers, she figured, than to paint portraits of all the dogs and surprise their owners with them at the program’s 10th anniversary celebration? 

There was just one thing she had to do to achieve this goal of hers: Learn how to paint.   

She started by enrolling in the “Paint a Pet” class offered by Julie Read at the Port Townsend School of the Arts. Pratt shared her goal of painting over 20 dogs in one year with Read, who cautioned her of the challenge that lay ahead. 

Read explained that even finishing one painting can be “frustrating, heart-breaking and taxing on your brain,” and that her style of “photorealism,” with its attention to minute details and its complicated techniques, can bring even more challenges.

“Therefore, when Kim revealed her dream to paint all these dogs in the Rover program, I thought to myself, ‘Well, let’s see if you can make it through just the first one,’” Read said in a press release.

Pratt, however, was up for the challenge and quickly set to work on her first portrait. Before long, she completed it and was eager to start on the next one. 

Under Read’s guidance, Pratt painted dog after dog, in sessions of up to five hours at a time. Each portrait would take about five to seven sessions, Pratt said. She would sneak photos of the Rover dogs and then carefully select which ones best captured their unique personalities. She and Read focused on bringing out the dogs’ character through their eyes. 

“I think when you look at the eyeballs of the dogs, they’re trying to say something,” Pratt said.

Pratt improved with every portrait, but that was hard for her to notice at the time. Each dog presented a brand-new learning curve for her, and she felt like she was learning from scratch each time, albeit with a few new brushstrokes in her arsenal. When she wasn’t completely satisfied with a portrait, she’d re-do it. 

Read, meanwhile, was enjoying watching Pratt’s progress.

“I’ve seen it happen right before my very eyes, witnessed the steady growth in her skill level, sensed her frustrations, watched the re-dos and lurked over her shoulder coaxing the perfect brush stroke,” Read said. “I’ve celebrated the joys of applying sparkles in eyeballs and wiggling ear hairs, which makes all the hard work worthwhile.”

Pratt’s initial one-year goal passed, but she continued to charge ahead with portraits as more dogs entered the program.

In the summer of 2019, Pratt was joined on the project by her friend Christie Johnson, a fellow Read to Rover volunteer and former colleague of Pratt’s at Chimacum Creek Primary school. Pratt served as a language and speech pathologist for 17 years, and Johnson worked close by as a kindergarten and preschool special education teacher. They had formed a strong friendship there over the years, Pratt said.

Johnson had been diagnosed with Stage 4 ovarian cancer in October 2018, and had to step down from her teaching role. She was restless at home, Pratt said, and longed to return to the classroom. The Read to Rover program provided her an opportunity to work alongside children once again, and her skills as a special education teacher were put to good use. 

“It gave her a sense of purpose,” Pratt said. “It gave her a reason to fight through the pain and get up each Friday morning with a smile on her face.”

Johnson poured the same energy into the painting project, showing up to the long sessions with Pratt and Read as much as possible despite the toll she took from chemotherapy sessions.

A former art teacher with a background in more freeform styles, Johnson found the technical realism style difficult yet intriguing, and made a strong effort to master it and make her portraits resemble those of Pratt’s for the eventual display. 

Not long after Johnson joined, Pratt was diagnosed with Stage 1 ovarian cancer herself, which provided a road bump in the project, but only briefly. 

Pratt and Johnson pushed on with the classes, aiming to keep a “diligent” schedule for their sessions with Read, but often having to wrap the sessions around their respective rounds of chemotherapy.

Pratt and Johnson supported each other through the chemotherapy process, and Pratt said that the painting sessions, despite their rigor, served as therapeutic breaks from everything else in their lives.

“When Christie got sick and wanted to come on board, it morphed into something else,” Pratt said of the project. “It became a journey for her, and it was something we could share together, besides cancer.”

“We both felt that way that it was a distraction and we were grateful to have it. And we were grateful for Julie to be there with us,” she said. 

Johnson completed two portraits and was working on a third when she passed away in February 2020. Read helped put the finishing touches on Johnson’s final portrait. 

“They are treasures and a testament to her love for the program,” Pratt said of Johnson’s works, which now hang beside hers in the display at Elevated Ice Cream.

“It was unbelievably difficult to go back to it when she passed,” Pratt said of the series. “She was a gem, just a total gem.” 

But Pratt was determined to see the project to its end, for both the dogs and for Johnson. With more dogs entering the program all the time, Read recommended that Pratt find a cap to the number of portraits to avoid continuing the series indefinitely. Pratt decided to highlight dogs who had routinely come in for at least two years, and finally finished the project with 20 portraits.

Pratt decided that the display at Elevated would serve as a tribute not only to the dedicated dog teams at Read to Rover, but to Johnson as well, who had shown strong dedication to both the program and the project in her final years.

“I had no idea how challenging the project would be, how much heartbreak would transpire throughout its evolution, how wonderful the experience working alongside a brilliant art teacher and how satisfying it would feel to accomplish such a broad reaching goal,” Pratt said. 

She added that Read was integral to the project’s success with her endless patience and teaching skills.

“I didn’t anticipate that this project would become such a long lasting project, and it’s been one that I’ve been really happy to be a part of,” Read said to The Leader. “It’s so exciting to see it come to fruition after all these years.”

Read added that she and Pratt have become friends over their journey together, and that she has become an advocate for the Read to Rover program, thanks to Pratt.

“It has been a highlight of my career to see this project through with her,” Read said. “She is a treasure in this community and a good friend to anyone who is lucky enough to know her.” 

The portraits will be on display through the end of February at Elevated Ice Cream at 627 Water St., which is open daily from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.