Elephant painting

Mon, 03/31/2008 - 15:31 - NLN

The Elephant Art & Conservation Project near Chiang, Mai, Thailand, showcases and sells paintings made by the animals. The paintings are decidedly abstract, but some resemble everyday objects, mostly flowers. For those paintings, teachers give the elephants guidance, telling them where to start a line or hit the canvas with the paint brush they hold with their trunk. Apparently, elephants in Asia are no longer needed by the declining logging industry so these domesticated beasts are "out of work." Artists Komar & Melamid, who had previously taught elephants to paint, founded the Conservation Project to help the Asian elephants.