Visitor: I'm interested in your personal insight into a specific drawing - "The Dogs of Time", which I purchased a print of a few months ago. I feel like the dog-wolf creature (whatever he is), is extraordinarily amused by his actions. What's your opinion?

Connett: Well, I draw them, but it's sometimes difficult for me to interpret them. It's difficult to be objective about ones own psychology. And since these pictures are drawn without forethought, they are indeed images dredged up from places that I'm not consciously aware of. My current impressions of the piece, being able to stand back and look at it after 3 years, (it was drawn in 1997), is this:

The Dogthing is a mask that I utilize to portray an illusion of power and to instill fear in those that I perceive as enemies. The dog/wolf/thing is only the illusion of power and strength that I feel I must portray for fear that I will be victimized by the predators that are lurking all around in this place. This is an environment which actually frightens the crap out of me ... So I'm putting on my 'bad ass' costume. The chaotic city in the background, the high pitched whistles screaming ... the bellowing smoke from fires emanating from unknown places, this is a very scary place. The hand is burned and seems to me to be both an injury and a weapon. A weapon that seems to frighten the fish. The fish are the other people that populate this landscape ... Note that there are fish peering out through windows cut into the dogs chest. I think that these are me, the real 'me', who like everyone else, is weak and afraid and doing my best to get by in an angry and hostile world.