Us Artist Raising Awareness Of Dogs In Pounds

[Her Majesty Dogmad]

I found this very moving and hope that it does make a difference.

Best to click into the article as there are the portraits there, with explanations as to why the dog wasn't rehomed.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2411823/Artist-Mark-Barone-immortalizing-5-5k-doomed-shelter-dogs-memorial-portraits.html

Faces of the doomed: Artist immortalizes 5,500 shelter dogs by painting each of their portraits before they are put down

Mark Barone of Louisville, Kentucky hopes to spread awareness about the no-kill shelter alternative using the sad faces of euthanized dogs

Barone was inspired to do the project after learning that 5,500 dogs are put to sleep in the U.S. every day

He paints 10 portraits per day and is 3,500 paintings into the project he hopes to make into a museum

By Joshua Gardner

PUBLISHED: 20:52 GMT, 4 September 2013 | UPDATED: 03:22 GMT, 5 September 2013

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A Kentucky artist is on a mission to paint 5,500 portraits of shelter dogs doomed to be put to sleep.

That’s the number of dogs killed per day in U.S. shelters, a number that shocked Mark Barone enough to start doing something about it.

By putting a face to the statistic, Barone hopes to spread awareness of the plight of homeless animals in the U.S.

Inspired: Kentucky artist Mark Barone spends each day painting doomed shelter dogs as part of a project to create 5,500 canine portraits

Inspired: Kentucky artist Mark Barone spends each day painting doomed shelter dogs as part of a project to create 5,500 canine portraits

It began after Barone’s own dog of 21 years, Santina, died three years ago.

His partner Marina Dervan thought it would be a good idea to adopt a new dog.

‘Mark was not interested,’ Dervan told Fast Company. ‘He just wasn't ready…But that didn't stop me. I was going online and looking at dogs. But instead of finding a dog, I found out all of the statistics about what was going on in terms of the amount of animals who were being killed in our shelter system.’

Dervan said she began sending the alarming information along to Mark who, at first, didn’t want to look at it. ‘Two days later, he said, “I have a really clear vision of what I want to do to solve the problem.”’

A videos of how the project came about can be found on Barone and Dervan's website.

[moosmum]

So very touching, and an absolutely brilliant way to make big difference.

A saint.

[raineth]

That is a very powerful and moving project.

Edited September 6, 2013 by raineth

[Snoopy21]

So many, many beautiful faces He's a very talented artist.