The Meat Tester

1991
woodcut
18" x 24"

In the early 1990s, I was a member of the organization named ADUK. It was dedicated to Ukrainian artists and we held annual shows at the Scarab Club in Detroit.

In 1991, we held a show that dealt with the 5 year anniversary of the Chornobyl tragedy and its effects on Ukraine. (No, I didn’t misspell Chornobyl. That’s the Ukrainian spelling. The spelling most are familiar with is the Russian version.)

When I was trying to come up with subject matter, Yuri Krus, another artist with group, told me this true story of his relatives in Ukraine. Turns out that at the time, the Soviet government would mix good meat with meat tainted with radioactive poisoning together to feed to the people. Since cats are known to have senses stronger than humans, Yuri’s relatives would feed some of it to the cat first. If the cat ate it, then they felt it was safe enough for the family. If the cat refused it, they knew it was too tainted for consumption.

The story scared the hell out of me and I knew it had to be the subject matter for my entry in the show. I thought a Käthe Kollwitz approach will serve the imagery well. My cat, Bebik, unknowingly was my model. I would drop a book onto the floor to make a lud noise, then grab a sketchbook so I could quickly capture her startled pose.

The final woodcut sold very quickly to the director of the Scarab Club at the time and the print was mentioned in the Detroit News. But there were a lot of other terrific works in the exhibit too by other Ukrainian artists. It was one of the best shows I have ever shown in.