How does your dog take its art?
Art and dogs have a fairly disparate relationship. Generally, aside from your dog spilling paint and leaving some paw prints around the house; it is unusual to talk about dogs and art in the same conversation other than as subject matter. It is probably even less common to discuss dogs as viewers of art.
However, maybe this is simply a result of the lack of art aimed directly at our canine friends. There are plenty of images of dogs in many art galleries around the world but, these galleries are typically not open to dogs and even if they are, the hanging of pictures seems to make no allowance for our friends of lower stature.
Thanks to the Love West Leeds Festival, all this has recently been changed. A series of dog appealing pictures have been located on lamp posts in the west Leeds area around Leeds Bradford Road and Rodley Town Street.
The festival is open about the humorous nature of this initiative but it is also selling a serious message regarding the importance of cleaning up after your dog in what is a popular dog walking area, in particular, Bramley Falls Park.
The festival is jointly funded by a group of bodies consisting of Leeds City Council, Arts Council England and local businesses.
Boasting no local art galleries, taking art to the streets is a successful approach for the organisers and both serious art and the more humorous elements exist side by side. The festival has run since 2006 and can have up to 3,000 visitors on the key festival day.
