It was the wolf picture that won her the acclaim, but the artwork is just a small part of Caitlin Bates' life with animals.Since she was a child, animals have shaped Bate's world and now tend to dominate as subjects in her artwork. When she was a toddler, she walked around with large rubber snakes. At 4, she was fascinated with reptiles and memorized all the Latin names for dinosaurs, and strutted about the house and beyond with a giant toy monitor lizard her mother bought her at the Pacific Science Center. To be sure, she is also one of the few kids who have ever had a lobster, named Crusty, as a pet. There was pet ladybug and cats and now a ferret named Sally.And four years ago, she and her mother, Mandy Crow, found an abandoned baby squirrel in an area park and nursed it back to health. Caitlin is drawn to the plight of other animals and can identify with the wolf, it's endangered status and that it is sometimes misunderstood. Her pastel picture of a wolf in a multicolored forest background became one of the top 10 drawings selected in a nationwide competition put on by VSA Arts in Washington D.C. VSA (Vision, Strength Artistic expression) is an affiliate of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. VSA teamed up with CVS Caremark. The contest called Kids Can...CREATE is designed for students with disabilities as a way to promote inclusiveness and artistic expression.Bates, who has mild autisim and is in the Level Four Autism Spectrum Program at Center School, had no idea about the competition until her teacher, Vanessa Stet, mentioned it."She was talking to me about art, the different styles and told me about the competition," Bates said. "I just wasn't sure if I wanted to do it."But as Marfin explained more about the contest, Bates went for it, submitting her Wolf picture. The pastel which features a grey wolf staring out from the colorful forest, was one of 10 chosen to be on display in Union Station in Washington D.C.When Bates learned she was a finalist, she smiled and later her mother took her to her favorite Mexican restaurant, La Palma.Most of Bates' paintings are done in chalk pastels and never does she sketch them out with pencil before applying the pastels. With the wolf painting, she paid closer attention to the bright background, inspired in part by anime classics Wolf's Rain and Princess Mononoke. For the wolf's face, which carries a deep expression, Bates drew upon her connection with animals, her knack for interpreting and understainding their facial expressions. She would like to continue her artwork as she finds it fun and calming. She may be attending Summit School next year, which is a K through 12 alternative school in North Seattle that specializes in art and in helping children with special needs."I'm a little worried because I don't know what it is going to be like," she said of the school.Bates is thinking about a career helping animals or maybe as an artist for video game developers in the Seattle area. She might do both. "I've always wondered if that was a hard thing to do," she said with a smile. [[In-content Ad]]
