Not all cat ladies are crazy cat ladies and photographer BriAnne Wills is determined to prove that through her heartwarming series “Girls and their Cats.“Yes, all these women love cats and may have more than one; yes, they share a unique bond; and no, they do not deserve to be labeled as ‘crazy.’ In fact, they often defy the stereotype entirely. As BriAnne herself has commented: “all of the cat-having women I personally knew were loving, creative, beautiful, cool and they just so happened to really love their cats.“So, without further ado, we invite you to take a look at women with cats and their stories that surely will touch your soul.More info:Instagram|girlsandtheircats.com|Facebook|youtube.comThis post may includeaffiliate links.
Not all cat ladies are crazy cat ladies and photographer BriAnne Wills is determined to prove that through her heartwarming series “Girls and their Cats.”
Yes, all these women love cats and may have more than one; yes, they share a unique bond; and no, they do not deserve to be labeled as ‘crazy.’ In fact, they often defy the stereotype entirely. As BriAnne herself has commented: “all of the cat-having women I personally knew were loving, creative, beautiful, cool and they just so happened to really love their cats.”
So, without further ado, we invite you to take a look at women with cats and their stories that surely will touch your soul.
More info:Instagram|girlsandtheircats.com|Facebook|youtube.com
This post may includeaffiliate links.
Bored Pandareached out to BriAnne to learn more about her project.
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BriAnne also shared how she captures the bond between women and their cats in her photos, and what challenges she faces.“When I arrive at their homes, I like to spend time with them, just chatting and letting the cats warm up to my presence. It’s important that both cat and cat lady feel comfortable enough so I can capture them in their element. In terms of challenges, well, cats are not the most agreeable subjects. They can be wary of strangers, nervous around camera flash, and a little stubborn. But I was up for the challenge and with a little patience, most cats realized I wasn’t there to take them to the vet and that it’s ok to trust me.”
BriAnne also shared how she captures the bond between women and their cats in her photos, and what challenges she faces.
“When I arrive at their homes, I like to spend time with them, just chatting and letting the cats warm up to my presence. It’s important that both cat and cat lady feel comfortable enough so I can capture them in their element. In terms of challenges, well, cats are not the most agreeable subjects. They can be wary of strangers, nervous around camera flash, and a little stubborn. But I was up for the challenge and with a little patience, most cats realized I wasn’t there to take them to the vet and that it’s ok to trust me.”
BriAnne’s Instagram account has collected over 129K followers. We were wondering how social media has helped her share her work and the stories behind it.
The artist also shared her experience of how pets, especially cats, help improve people’s emotional and mental well-being.
“Both my partner and I had cats growing up, so it was no surprise that almost as soon as we moved in together, he suggested we adopt a cat. We went to the shelter in San Francisco intending to come home with one cat, but fell in love with a pair of calico sisters that were touted as ‘a bonded pair’. Having lived with them for over 7 years now, this was clearly just an effective 2-for-1 marketing scheme, as they are not particularly affectionate, or demonstrably a bonded pair in any way. They don’t cuddle or sleep together, and in the rare off-chance one grooms the other, it very quickly devolves into a fight.It took us over a week to settle on names for them, but we eventually landed on Biggie and Smalls. Their names are not ironic—Smalls is petite, a shorter-haired calico with gorgeous teal-green eyes, and Biggie, is larger, with long luxurious hair and the same beautiful eyes. Fun fact—my partner didn’t grow up in the US and had no idea who Biggie Smalls was when I suggested their names 😇 We never tried to teach them their names but they actually learned them (and each other’s) remarkably quickly. They come basically any time we call, which is incredible recall compared to our dog who we actually did try to train to come when called.”
Lastly, BriAnne wrote about what common themes she noticed in the relationships between women and their cats, and how this influenced her work as an artist.“I’ve noticed that women will do almost anything to keep their cats happy, healthy, and entertained. They’re buying the best foods, they’re sacrificing spaces for litter boxes (this is a big deal in NYC), they’re catifying their homes. And most of all, they’re embracing the term ‘cat lady.’”
Lastly, BriAnne wrote about what common themes she noticed in the relationships between women and their cats, and how this influenced her work as an artist.
“I’ve noticed that women will do almost anything to keep their cats happy, healthy, and entertained. They’re buying the best foods, they’re sacrificing spaces for litter boxes (this is a big deal in NYC), they’re catifying their homes. And most of all, they’re embracing the term ‘cat lady.’”
“We frequently refer to Clover as ‘our special guy’. He has a pink nose and pink beans. He has no teeth and no neck! He’s also 7, which is special because he has Feline Leukemia (FeLV+) which is a chronic illness known to shorten a cat’s lifespan. At his last check-up, our vet mentioned many FeLV+ cats don’t make it past 5. Though Clover shows absolutely no signs of going anywhere, we still cherish every single day we get to live with this vibrant, outgoing, and adorable little animal.Clover has come a long way since my boyfriend and I adopted him back in 2020. We adopted him through the @catcafebk but before that, they assumed he lived mostly as a street cat. After he was rescued from somewhere in the Bronx, beyond needing to be fixed he had filthy ears, a mouthful of rotten teeth, intestinal worms, and loose stools. I remember he had a thin, raspy meow, almost like he had a sore throat. After extensive dental work, medications, and lots of wrapping him up in a towel burrito for ear cleanings, I’d say he’s had quite the glow-up. I’m not sure if I’m happy to report this, but I can report that his meow is now piercing and unignorable.”
“I never considered myself to be a cat person when I moved to New York 10 years ago. I didn’t grow up around them, mainly because my mother was highly allergic, and didn’t know many people with cats.When COVID came to NY, it hit my life hard. Early on, I lost my grandfather and watched the city shut down while people around me left NYC for good. I was fortunate to have job security, but work was intense. My company was racing to develop a medicine for COVID, which often meant working around the clock with an urgency that made it feel impossible to focus on anything else. It all left me feeling overwhelmed and alone a lot of the time.Then, I ended up fostering my best friend’s cat while she moved to London for a year, and it completely changed my relationship with cats.Scar was a 16-pound gray Maine Coon who loved to go on walks, snack on whatever he could get his paws on, and keep me company while I worked. He made me realize how great companion cats could be, and how much I wanted one in my life more permanently one day. After a year together, I moved back to Brooklyn and Scar went back to his human, and I once again found myself being solo in my apartment.In December 2021, I heard about a cat adoption event at @BushwickBark, featuring local non-profits including @whiskers_agogo. I was immediately drawn to Lucy, a two-year-old fluff ball with a spotted hair pattern, green eyes, a little dark ‘smudge’ above her mouth, and the longest whiskers I’ve ever seen. I was head over heels once she nestled her head into my arms when I picked her up for the first time. There were multiple applications for her already, so I nervously waited for a phone call. I almost screamed when I heard mine was accepted and I got to bring her home the week of Christmas.”
“I adopted Steven in 2017 sort of on a whim—I had grown up with cats but hadn’t had one for about 12 years despite being a lifelong cat lover. It hadn’t really occurred to me that I could just get a pet as an adult until a fateful bottomless Easter brunch, and the next thing I knew I was deep in Craigslist listings setting up appointments to view cats. I ended up in touch with Good Home Pet Adoption, who had three cats available—one with white fur, one with a dietary issue, and a runt who hid the entire time. We fished out the hidden cat from under the couch and I snapped her up. This was my Stevie Nicks. And then, within a day of getting her home, she was immediately Steven.Steven has been with me through many roommates, a long-term relationship, a temporary relocation, and now is my sole companion in my studio apartment. This past year that we have been on our own has taught me so much about Steve and we have gotten so much closer. She greets me at the door every day and pokes me with her paw to wake me up in the morning so I can come to the couch and she can sit on my lap. Steve absolutely loves tummy time and many parts of our daily ritual involve her flopping on the ground and waiting to be ferociously pet. She is also extremely vocal and communicates in little squeaks—I only ever get a full-bodied meow when she’s displeased, and that only occurs when I leave her to go on vacation. She is extremely affectionate and loves to headbutt me for attention because above all she LOVES company. I sometimes think about getting a second cat for her since she is 7 now, but I genuinely think she craves human attention above all else.”
“I got Sage as a foster fail during the school-from-home days of COVID. I had always grown up with cats and had fostered in the past as a true cat-lover, and within a few seconds of having Sage, I knew it was going to be a foster fail. I really wanted a companion during a time when we would be home so much, but even past that I always loved to foster cats for the companionship and I could tell right away that she was going to be such a good one. When I first got her, she was a scrawny little kitty but she always had her big adorable thumbs. Sage is polydactyl and you can tell right away, she has about 7 toes on each foot! When she was a tiny kitten she would follow me all over the room which I found adorable, but I also realized I no longer had any form of privacy. She would climb up and sit on my shoulders, keep me company during online classes, and snuggle up with me at night.”
“My mom is an animal lover, so we had dogs and cats around for most of my childhood. My boyfriend had a similarly pet-filled upbringing. Once we moved in together in NYC, it was only a matter of time before we started thinking about pets. We decided we wanted a kitten, and after learning that kittens do much better in pairs, we decided we’d get two and submitted an application to Brooklyn Animal Action.I have a soft spot for orange cats (my mom’s cat Kitty, who is now 14, is also orange) and so when I saw pictures of the boys I had to meet them. We learned from their foster that they had been found in a backyard somewhere in Brooklyn along with their feral mom and one other littermate, a sister. Their mom, who had long orange hair like Roscoe, had been TNRed and the sister had been adopted to a home with another cat. I couldn’t believe how tiny and cute they were, only 8-9 weeks old at the time. Of course, we fell in love on the spot and had to take them home.I liked the name Roscoe for a cat and my boyfriend liked Chester, so naming them was just a matter of deciding who got which name. I can’t recall now how we settled on that. But the mnemonic I came up with for friends who mix them up is C is C and R is R—that is, Chester is cream-colored and Roscoe is red.It’s impossible to imagine life without them now. They sleep in bed with us most nights. I call Chester my ‘butt warmer’ because he often sleeps snuggled right up against my butt. Meanwhile, we call Roscoe ‘propper’ because he loves to sleep with his front half propped up on one of our legs or feet. It was life-changing for us to get a king-sized bed last year to more comfortably fit all 4 of us.”
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“When you meet me and find that I live with a cat you’d think I’m a cat person. But when you hear that I own a dog-walking business you’d think I’m a dog person. Neither is true. I’m an animal person. The notion of Dogs vs Cats was always so silly to me. Just like all beings, they are amazing in their own ways. I also give a massive side-eye to anyone who doesn’t like cats because they do things on their own terms. Shouldn’t we all strive to give and receive consent when dealing with others? That being said, I had no intention of adopting a cat or any other animal companion. However, just over a decade ago I was living in Bushwick and this very handsome and super vocal street cat had other plans. My roommate had a dog and this super friendly cat would run up to rub faces with him and get a good sniff in. They quickly became BFFs! He eventually learned that I always had dog treats on hand and knew how to get them! He’d begun to meet me at my building in the morning and walk me towards the L train. On the way home, I’d call to him with tongue clicks and this fuzzy loudmouth would come frolicking over! One day he looked like he wanted pets but I’d dealt with enough cats with big boundaries that I hesitated. Well, never a man afraid of going after what he wants, he thrust himself up onto his hind legs and brushed his own forehead with my hand! The cutest move ever! My heart never stood a chance. A big snow blew in one day and I saw him curled up on someone’s stoop with the little female cat he would roam with. They were holding each other with snow falling on them. My heart broke. I watched and asked myself, “am I going to have to get cats?” And then I thought, ‘what would I name them?’ We lived on Moffat St which is where this feline and I developed a relationship. I decided that Mo would be a good name for him. She had a white star shape on her chest. My roommates and I were from Texas, so I decided Lonestar would be perfect for her. And once I knew their names, Mo & Lonestar, I knew that I was indeed going to have to get cats.”
“The cat distribution system has blessed me twice in my lifetime. In middle school, I found my first cat, Snagglepuss, wandering the streets of my hometown on Long Island. When I moved back home again after college, I found Nightmare and her litter of abandoned kittens.Nightmare and I were both going through hard times when we first met. She had clearly been someone’s pet before getting knocked up and kicked out. I’d just moved back into my parent’s basement after graduating college on the heels of a recession with no job prospects in sight.No one wanted either of us, but we had each other.I liked Nightmare right away. She was beautiful and tough to win over. My type of girl. A tiny black cat with big bright eyes and a spicy personality. One minute, she’d be rolling over and rubbing up against you; the next, she’d turn around and hiss. But the more I learned her body language, the better I anticipated what she liked and didn’t like. My dad started calling her Nightmare because of her attitude, and the name stuck. It’s made vet visits very entertaining.It’s crazy to think back to the summer we met 14 years ago. She’s come such a long way in terms of trusting humans again, specifically me. She was never a cuddly cat and always liked her space. It took years for her to voluntarily sit on or even next to me, but now it’s part of our daily routine. She loves to come up to my lap when I’m sitting on the couch, gently place her two front paws on my leg, and look up at me. When I’m lying down, she likes to sit on my chest and snuggle up as close as she possibly can to my face.”
“My parents ran a veterinary clinic together while I was growing up (my Dad is a vet and my Mom ran his business) so I’ve been around animals my entire life. Their clinic was basically our second home so my sisters and I saw and did everything from a super early age. We walked dogs, cleaned kennels and litter boxes, and saw all sorts of complicated cases when my parents would have to bring animals home with us for overnight care. I’ve never felt at home in a place where there isn’t an animal.I rescued Ladybug from @flatbushcats in 2019. I’d just ended a marriage and was restarting my life and my former partner had kept our shared cat, Reggie. I was heartbroken but knew that Reggie was in a safe, happy home and that this was an opportunity for me to give a good home to another cat. I saw Ladybug in an Instagram video and felt instantly connected to her. She had been rescued in Brooklyn after walking up to people up and down the street asking for help. She was tiny, only 4 lbs, and covered in open sores on her face and feet but thankfully my friends Sarah and Ed took her home and nursed her back to health. Ladybug was kind of a disaster. She was starved, had a distended belly that turned out to be the result of necrotic tissue inside of her, a dislocated hip, and had huge open sores on her face and feet which we eventually learned was due to a Cryptococcus infection. Crypto is a fungal infection that is uncommon in the NY area so it took several weeks to get her a diagnosis and started on the right medications.After I’d shown my parents her videos and told them I was in touch with the rescue to adopt her, my dad said “she seems very sweet, but you know that you don’t have to adopt a disaster.” A few weeks later when I brought her home we bonded instantly. She was so sick and frail but would just sit in my lap for hours and purr constantly. We both had a lot of healing to do at that point and wound up being the perfect match for each other. She loves to cuddle and be held. I’ll often make eye contact with her from across the room and she’ll just start purring immediately!”
“I adopted Ollie in 2015. At the time, I was living with two roommates, in an apartment that was deeply infested with mice. I wanted a cat and my roommates had mixed feelings, but I think the mice helped convince them. I had some experience with pets—my family briefly had a dog and a cat, and my mom got a dog when I was in high school. I took the dog in after she died. I’d also lived with partners who had cats and had gotten pets with partners. But Ollie was the first cat— the first pet—that I chose, just for me. The first one that was truly mine.I didn’t really know how to pick a cat. I visited a few different cats, and when I met Ollie, he just crawled right into my lap. And that was it. He had this black mark on his nose and this little beard and I just melted. He picked me, for sure. His foster family said he had been wandering the streets in BedStuy, trying to see if anyone would let him inside. With his charm and sass, how could anyone say no?Ollie is absolutely the king of the castle. He always wants to be where the party is. He greets me at the door when I come home, and always says hello to my guests. But he also likes his space— he will turn on you quick if you’re petting him and he decides he doesn’t like it. He’s also super snuggly, but on his own terms. My favorite is when he snuggles up in my armpit at night, or when he becomes a little purr machine on my chest. He loves to go exploring in the hallway. He’ll wait at the door when I’m about to leave—he’s so damn smart, he knows when I’m packing my bag or putting my lipstick on it means I’m about to leave, so he just parks himself near the door. Sometimes I have to lure him away with catnip or treats. He also loves to sneak into my coat closet—though one time I didn’t notice he’d snuck in there, and I left him in there all day. In retribution, he peed on a coat that an ex of mine had left behind. Oops. (But also - way to go, Ollie.)”
“Marble and I started our shared life together in 2020 at the height of the pandemic. I was thinking about fostering for a year at this point and finally decided to follow through after my boyfriend and I thought we could use the company during lockdown. I’d always liked the idea of adopting an adult cat or a black cat since they tend to have lower adoption rates overall. I just happened to see her profile one day on PupStarz Rescue’s website and immediately knew she was the one. She was described as ‘sweet and petite’ but also ‘bold and sassy’. If I remember correctly, she was ‘a total hoot to have around’. I submitted an application immediately. About a week later, which just so happened to be around my birthday, I was approved! Best birthday ever.”
“I’m an only child and I grew up pretty attached to our family pets—Cloudy, a beautiful German Shepard, and Boris, the world’s coolest cat. After living in NYC for many years without an animal I was kind of desperate and talked my husband into fostering a puppy, hoping it would convince him to adopt a dog with me. It turns out that living with a dog in Minnesota is a very different experience (plus my parents did all the work) and I realized that having a young dog in a New York apartment isn’t the easiest thing in the world. After our foster puppy was adopted, I decided maybe I wasn’t ready for a dog of my own and turned my attention toward cats. My husband was ‘not a cat person’ and said that the only way he’d ever agree to get a cat was if it magically appeared, but this was not ‘no’ so I low-key started applying to all kinds of cat rescues in the city. The problem was that picking just one cat to bring home was too heartbreaking for me and I started to think maybe it wasn’t meant to be.As fortune would have it, my cousin found a tiny brown and white kitten outside of her apartment in Bed-Stuy the same week that my husband was out of town, so I went right over to meet the kitten. She was in the bathroom, curled up on a cashmere scarf, but the second she had an opportunity to run free she was zooming around the living room. The glare she gave me with her big green eyes when I finally caught her sealed the deal and I brought her home.”
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Viktorija Ošikaitė
Eligijus Sinkunas
Animals
