William Wegman
[Artist, b. 1943, Holyoke, Massachusetts, lives in New York.]

 My Weimaraners are perfect fashion models. Their elegant, slinky forms are covered in gray—and gray, everyone knows, goes with anything. 
 [Man Ray] takes a lot of pressure off me. It’s like having a third person in a conversation; one of you doesn’t have to talk all the time. 
 I was really relieved not to have to drag something in front of the camera, I could use a pencil and paper. A regular pencil and typing paper. That appealed to me. (On his drawings) 
 Man Ray... loved games and absolutely knew about the camera. It is interesting to note that although I used him in only about 10 percent of the photographs and videotapes, most people think of him as omnipresent in my work. It irked me sometimes to be known only as the guy with the dog, but on the other hand it was a thrill to have a famous dog. 
 The best thing about Fay isn’t visible in a photo. It’s her voice. You say: “Fay, speak,” and she sounds like a distant thunderstorm. (On his canine model, Fay Ray; 1987.) 
 In 1978 I decided not to work with Man Ray as an act of self-discipline. I didn’t want to rely on him. Man Ray hated not working, though. He would come into my studio, see me drawing or working on photographs, and just slump down at my feet with a big sigh. Fortunately for both of us the year ended. Polaroid had invented a new camera, the twenty-by-twenty-four, and I was invited to Cambridge, Mass., to experiment with it. Naturally, I took Man Ray and we were working again. 
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