Artist hopes patrons will sniff at her work

Dog Park hydrants are waggish fun

CARY -- You could call it a pet project.

Hoping to spruce up a dog park, Cary hired local artist Rachel Herrick to paint 16 recycled fire hydrants in bold colors.

The hydrants were installed last week on concrete pads around the park. They should look familiar to some of the regulars. Each one has a caricature of a dog that frequents the park -- in industrial-strength red, blue, yellow and purple paint.

Herrick, who lives in Fuquay-Varina, said she chose the colors because dogs can see them.

"It's a myth that dogs only see in black and white," she said.

Models chosen

The dogs were selected during a workshop in October that was advertised on fliers around the park. Herrick, 27, showed the owners how to draw a caricature, then improved on their sketches.

It's a diverse pack. There's a bulldog named Wrinkles, a pug named Rufus and a mutt named Mojo. Because this is Cary, there's also a Bichon Frise named Artemis, a Lhasa Apso named Gogi and a Samoyed named Lexi.

Among canine art, the paintings fall closer to George Rodrigue's famed blue dog paintings than black-velvet pictures of dogs playing poker. Herrick said she tried to convey the personality of each animal.

One dog, a rat terrier, is on a skateboard. Another, an Australian shepherd known as the sheriff of the dog park, gazes forward sternly.

The hydrants were a bit of a challenge for the artist. Though Herrick has worked with mailboxes, the hydrants were a more unusual shape, with raised lettering and bolts to paint around. Whenever possible, she tried to incorporate the elements.

Thus, lettering became a pug's wrinkle and a bolt became another dog's nose. Small white bones are painted around the hard-to-reach parts.

"I treated the hydrants like canvases, basically," she said.

There was another problem, related to why dogs like fire hydrants in the first place. The finished artwork had to be sturdy enough to last several years.

After a lot of research, Herrick settled on a heavy-duty enamel paint with a silicon-based anti-graffiti sealant. She said that should last, though no company would guarantee it could withstand the dogs' treatment.

"I've had a lot of weird conversations with paint manufacturers over the past few months," she said.

Herrick, who coordinates exhibitions for the Visual Art Exchange in Raleigh, said she hopes the town will have a dedication for the hydrants this month.

"I don't think it'll exactly be a ribbon-cutting," she said. "Maybe we'll just have some dogs come in and pee on them."