The Dog

John Williams is an architect from Cleveland, and has always been an ardent fan of Spalding Gray’s performances. “I was just struck by everything: his writing, his delivery, his presence,” he said in an interview.

Mr. Williams also happened to be a fan of Weimaraners, a dog breed which, let’s face it, looks like it was designed by an architect — all angles and sleekness and graceful lines. When he and his then-wife Marcie Goodman, the executive director of the Cleveland International Film Festival, got their first Weimaraner in the early ’90s, they took one look at that magnificent gray coat and named him Spalding Gray. “He was our fur child,” Mr. Williams said. “He had the best nature and soul I’ve ever experienced in a dog.”

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The canine Spalding Gray was also a local celebrity even in the years before Instagram. Ms. Goodman always worked Spalding and eventually his brother, Jackson (Brown — do you sense a theme?) into her film festival guides. Mr. Williams listed Spalding (and eventually his other Weimaraners) as staff members on his company website. Because the dogs hung out in Mr. Williams’s office all day, a number of clients would point to them and say, ‘Can you paint my wall that color?” “It was a surprisingly frequent request,” Mr. Williams adds.

Of such moments, history is made.

The Color

Encouraged by the interest, Mr. Williams and Ms. Goodman decided to approach the house paint manufacturers, Sherwin Williams, which happened to be headquartered in Cleveland, with the idea of duplicating their dogs’ coat hue for a paint of the same name. “That was in 2001,” noted Sue Wadden, Sherwin Williams’s director of color marketing, “and since that time Spalding Gray has consistently ranked among the top 20 percent of all colors sold.” The internet seems fond of it too. Google “Spalding Gray” and “paint color” and you will see websites and endless Pinterest pages devoted to this particular shade of gray with subtle undertones of chocolate.