Nicolas Cage has inspired a cat art exhibition – newsdubai
Susan Michals is a serious cat lady. She even started CatCon, an annual two-day event that bills itself as the largest cat-centric pop culture event in the world.
And this year it’s all about beloved, ahem, national treasure Nicolas Cage.
This happened because Michals noticed Cage’s references to his cats in interviews, particularly a cute one he made while promoting Aprils The unbearable weight of massive talentwhere he declared his adopted cat Merlin his best friend.
“Well, my best friend is a cat. And his name is Merlin,” Cage said while promoting the film. “He’s an unusual cat. He’s very affectionate. He loves contact. Sometimes he jumps into bed and he wants to hug me, you know? I actually want to think it’s my wife. No, it’s Merlin. And that is just an amazing, kind of loving, loving energy that comes from that cat. He’s a real, a real sweetheart. So that’s my best friend.”
Michals, who has “loved Nicolas Cage forever,” in part because of his eccentricities, had an idea.
“You never know what to expect with Nicolas Cage,” Michals tells Yahoo Entertainment. “And it’s much the same to me in a cat’s personality. Dogs, they’re trained—they love you, love you, love you, love you, love you—will do whatever you want. Cats can be apathetic and so loving within a 10-second period. You can rub my belly, but… not that place.”
It was stuck.
“I thought, ‘I want to honor Nicolas Cage, honor his love of cats, honor the fact that… he does things the way he wants, just like cats,’” explains Michals.
Since Michals also curates the semi-regular Cat Art Show — which is just what it sounds like — last October, she knew just who to call. She reached out to some of the dozens of artists there; people she knew would create something that would be really wrong.
The result is Uncaged: The Unbearable Weight of Genius Cat Art, an art exhibition debuting at this year’s CatCon on 1-2 October at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena, California. The seven pieces will be available for sale, priced from $300 to $5,000. Some of them have already been sold.
One dollar from each admission ticket goes to three cat charities. In fact, Michals, who started the cat events to go beyond the crazy cat lady stereotype, says the organization has donated $330,000 to charities. Seven hundred kittens have been adopted there.
She hasn’t reached out to Cage yet, but she’s hopeful he’ll attend. She knows he might not, since he and his artist wife welcomed a baby just two weeks ago.
“I’m crossing my fingers.”