Clean Run Magazine - July 2008 - 43

February 10, 1961 – April 12, 2008 Recently we lost a member of the Clean Run family. Most of you probably don’t know Anne Cusolito, but if you have ever been to our website, picked up a copy of Clean Run magazine in the last four years, or bought a CR-published book or DVD, then you have seen her work. Anne was an artist, and the pages of Clean Run were her canvas. Anne did everything from the trafficking and preparation of ads to designing and laying out every single page of the magazine. She did illustrations, came up with ideas for the illustrators to draw, and she did lots of the photography for the magazine — she loved capturing the interaction between agility people and their dogs both on and off the course. But her talent wasn’t just limited to the visual aspects of the magazine; she was my sounding board for editorial ideas, my marketing director, and my inspiration for improving and changing the magazine and undertaking new book and DVD projects. And she had wit and wisdom that carried me and others through difficult and stressful times. I had always thought the saying, “Live each day as if it was your last,” was a little trite, but now I think that you can’t really appreciate its meaning until you experience a loss such as this. In honor of Anne’s memory I ask all of you to tell Clean Run was not just a “dog magazine” to her. Anne wanted it to be the best magazine of all the magazines out there. She was a perfectionist. More than once I was sent off to do a second, or even a third, photo shoot for an article. The Clean Run dogs generally run when they see me coming with the camera! I remember one photo shoot last August. I was instructed by Anne to shoot the top of Anna Jonsson’s head. You see, only Anna had the right hair to color green and build an agility course on top of, to create the main image for "Help for the Spatially Inept" by Roxanne Hawn. I tried a dozen ways to get the photo, but I just couldn’t get the angle right for Anne’s vision until I finally convinced Anna to climb up onto the truck box in the bed of a pickup. Of course by then, the light wasn’t quite right and we had to come back and shoot again the next day. Anne proved to me again and again, that the devil was in the detail. the people who are important in your life how much they mean to you. You never know when it will be your last chance to do so. When Anne was diagnosed, we knew that our time with her was finite, but we never imagined it would be limited to a handful of weeks. I did not appreciate those precious moments enough. Take nothing for granted. And keep in mind a lesson that Anne always reminded me of: Nothing in life worth doing is easy, and nothing is worth doing if it doesn’t make you happy. When Anne found out at the end of February that she had cancer, I expected that she would want to travel the world or fulfill some other lifelong dream. But aside from wanting a good place to walk with her dogs, she told me that she was happy with her life and had everything she wanted. She had her work, her family, and most importantly, her beloved partner of 29 years, Rick DeAmelio. So, we started talking about developing a plan for finding help for Anne so that she didn’t have to be responsible for all the design work at Clean Run. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to execute that plan. After what the doctor thought was a very successful first chemo treatment, Anne unexpectedly became ill while trying to finish the May issue of the magazine and went into the hospital. She never came home. Rest in peace my friend; you will never be forgotten – Monica Percival

Clean Run Magazine - July 2008

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run Magazine - July 2008