Hays High School art teacher, Marnie Hart, poses with her German Shepherd, Bonham, who inspired her book “I Promise to...” (Courtesy photo)
by JIM CULLEN
Hays High School art teacher Marnie Hart thought that when she wrote, illustrated and published her first book, she’d “feel a sense of conclusion.”
But with a thousand copies of her recently published tome in-hand, Hart says, “I really only feel a sense of beginning.”
“I Promise to…” tells the story of one of Hart’s family members, Bonham, a German Shepherd adopted from the San Marcos Animal Shelter.
A five-year member of the Hays High School art department faculty, Hart’s last school was in upstate New York, where during a ten-year tenure she taught “everything…from Computer Graphics to Yearbook to Drawing, Painting, Studio Art, Ceramics, Sculpture and Studio Art Drawing.” Like many teachers, she carries a deep passion for what she does and this extends to a love of animals.
“I find great comfort and solace in my animals and I am unbearably heartbroken when I see or hear of any animal suffering. I believe the way a culture takes care of its animals is a direct reflection upon the nature of that culture,” Hart said.
That intensity of passion can well up at the mere suggestion of cruelty or suffering. That was the case one pivotal moment in Hart’s past when “after crying through the ASPCA’s commercial with Sarah McLaughlin singing ‘Arms of an Angel,’ and asking $19 a month,” she thought to herself, “I can raise more than that.”
And so began her journey – her mission – to personally do something for shelter animals. The next morning she woke up “with the idea of a book” in her head and quickly sketched it out. The beginnings were done “hastily,” she admits, but she knew she could use her artistic skills “to raise money and, hopefully, awareness.” The planning and illustrating consumed large portions of the next 17 months, with her husband and son helping take thousands of pictures of Bonham to use as reference for the illustrations.
Hart says she serendipitously found her publisher, Groundbreaking Press, and the physical process of the publishing got underway. Along the way, she “learned a ton about Photoshop and enlisted the magical computer skills of Patti Swanson, one of my Advanced Placement art students.” The cooperative effort helped bring the mission to completion – or, at least, to that “beginning” Hart finds herself in today.
German Shepherd lead character Bonham, once on his shelter’s next-day “death row” because of heartworm positive status, managed an escape to the joys of joining the author’s family. Through her mission, Hart is donating all of her book’s first printing proceeds to “Austin Pets Alive!”. Copies of the modestly-priced book are available online from her publisher at www.groundbreaking.com under “Published Authors” or directly from the author at [email protected].
“If I get to produce more books, I may choose a new organization,” Hart says. Shelter animals everywhere should be so lucky.
