This scarf originated in my amusement at learning that drinking fountains for cats are now considered a necessary consumer product among cat owners. As a lover of fountains I was struck by the modest, pleasant trickle coming from the metal apparatus tucked away in unassuming locations in friends’ apartments.

I imagined the cats sipping from lavish spouts in more inspiring circumstances, as in mysterious verdant grottos.

The fountains pictured here come from Pompeiian frescos, or from actual fountains in Rome today, including the She Wolf fountain near the Coliseum and the Fountain of Four Lions at the Piazza del Popolo.

While working on the scarves I started thinking of the cats as an allegory of the artist as a domesticated animal dependent on a trickle of sustenance it has no control over, that comes down through a system it has not designed... And when a friend asked about the Lion Fountain at top left, I said it was “Big Cat -- the cats’ Big Other.” To which he responded with a reference to the David Bowie song ‘Big Brother” from Diamond Dogs. Which is now officially the soundtrack to this scarf.