Folk artist and author Stephen Huneck sits in the Dog Chapel he built on his St. Johnsbury, Vt., property in 2001. (Jordan Silverman/Getty Images)Folk artist and author Stephen Huneck, whose love of dogs inspired his art and books, and the building of a unique dog chapel, has died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was 60.

The Vermont artist's wife, Gwen Huneck, shared news of his death.

"Tragically, Stephen took his own life," Huneck wrote in a letter posted online.

"Stephen had been despondent for some time now and was being treated for depression."

She added that because of the economic downturn, the couple feared losing their St. Johnsbury, Vt., home and mountain-top farm, dubbed Dog Mountain. On Tuesday, they were forced to lay off most of the employees of their art studio and the chapel Huneck unveiled in 1999.

"This hurt Stephen deeply. He cared about them and felt responsible for their welfare," she said.

Two days later, Huneck shot himself in the head while sitting in his parked car outside the office of his psychiatrist, she revealed.

"He was one of the most creative and active members of the Vermont crafts community," Jennifer Boyer, co-owner of the Artisans Hand craft gallery in Montpelier, said in an interview.

"I appreciate how much energy he put into his works, which were whimsical and sardonically funny. He really had a unique sense of humour."

Self-taught artist

Born in Sudbury, Mass., Huneck started out in the antique business and become a furniture-maker, self-taught carver and wood-cut artist whose oeuvre was largely inspired by his love of dogs.

He also turned his canine inspirations into popular children's books: My Dog's Brain, The Dog Chapel and, inspired by one of his black Labrador retrievers, the Sally series, including the bestseller Sally Goes to the Beach. All are illustrated with his wood-cut prints.

After suffering a fall in the mid-1990s, Huneck developed adult respiratory distress syndrome and nearly died. Despite a challenging period of recovery, he emerged from the near-death experience inspired to create a non-denominational chapel on his property where the public could remember their dogs who had passed away.

Funded by his art, built from materials harvested from his property and featuring his hand-carved woodworking, Huneck's Dog Chapel opened in 1999.

Huneck's artwork is held in both private and public collections, including at the Smithsonian Institution building in Washington, D.C., New York's Museum of American Folk Art and the Contemporary Museum of Art in Sydney, Australia.

With files from The Associated Press