My obsession with sighthounds is well documented, so it’s not entirely shocking that Kim Parkhurst’s Toadbriar shop on Etsy is on my favorites list. I’ve drooled over her carousel greyhound series for well over a year now, and as soon as I can figure out where in my apartment it should live, I’ll be snapping it up.
When I e-mailed Kim to ask if we could share some of her prints, we got to chatting about Greyhounds, and I asked her where her fascination with the breed stemmed from. She replied thusly:
“We got our first retired racer in 1997. It was instant love when I stumbled into a meet and greet in 1994 or so. And they’re just so pleasing to draw! Nearly any color, and you can paint them into just about any historical period. They do aristocratic or mischievous equally well. And they’re the only breed that actually seems to have butt cheeks. What’s not to love?”
I was immidiately thrilled to not be the only person I know who admires the butt cheeks on sighthounds.
Kim lives on an Art Farm in rural Massachusetts, where she paints critters great and small and lives with more animals than I have fingers.
By her count: One greyhound (Zinny), one Boxer (Tubby), three cats, four goats, 26 ducks, two geese, four turkeys, a parrot, and a mini horse. (Most of her crew is pictured here.) Jealous yet?
What I love about Kim’s work is her knack for detail, and how her Greyhound and Whippet pieces stay true to the breeds from character to coloring. While many of her sighthounds wear period garb, if you look at their eyes you can tell they were created by someone who has looked deep into the eyes of a Greyhound before and seen a soul.
For more of Kim, check out her Etsy shop. Signed prints run $20 (5-by-7-inch) to $22 (8-by-10-inch).
