I got to thinking about all of this recently when I saw a certain Joe Brainard painting of a white dog laid out rather elegantly on a green couch. I was immediately drawn in by Brainard’s tangibly affectionate disposition toward his model. The artist’s attempt to render his model faithfully, as if genuinely inspired by the dog’s beauty, the peculiarity of its form, stood in contrast to everything I’d seen by Brainard up to that point—work I enjoy quite a bit, as well, but which is defined instead by cartoonish play, pen-and-ink spunk. This wasn’t Brainard being Brainard in solitude; it was Brainard really listening to, seeking contact with, the dog—meeting the animal halfway.