| If your cat walked across something you were | | | | Komar and Melamid visited elephant camps in Thailand. |
| painting and left footprints behind, would you consider | | | | There they began to show the mahouts, or elephant |
| your cat an artist? What if your bird could hold a | | | | trainers, how to teach the elephants to paint. At first, |
| colored pencil in its beak and make marks on a piece | | | | the mahout has to guide the elephant's trunk. The |
| of paper? These ideas might sound like a joke to | | | | elephants became more comfortable doing this with |
| you, but some people have been taking animal art | | | | practice -- and lots of sweet snacks -- and finally |
| very seriously. | | | | started to paint on their own. |
| In 1995, two Russian-American artists, Vitaly Komar | | | | The strange idea that Komar and Melamid had to |
| and Alex Melamid, first heard about the troubled | | | | save the elephants actually began to work. They |
| elephants of Thailand. Elephants were used for | | | | helped found several elephant art schools in Thailand |
| hundreds of years in Thailand's logging industry to | | | | and in other Asian countries. The elephants and their |
| haul timber from forests in areas where there were | | | | mahouts go there to learn about painting and to get |
| no roads. When the forests of Thailand began to | | | | the supplies they need. Today, people buy elephant |
| slowly disappear, the government put a stop to | | | | artwork from galleries all around the world. Some are |
| logging. All of a sudden, there were many elephants | | | | even willing to pay more than $2,000 for the work |
| who no longer had a way to make a living. | | | | of the elephant artists! |
| Some elephants were abused. Others had to try to | | | | Some people have compared the cheerful, |
| survive on their own and couldn't find enough to eat. | | | | brightly-colored artwork to the work of abstract |
| There were once tens of thousands of elephants | | | | painters like Jackson Pollock and Vasily Kandinsky. |
| living in Thailand. Today, there are less than five | | | | Other people are just happy to buy art that is so |
| thousand. Komar and Melamid knew that something | | | | unique and original and that supports such a good |
| had to be done to help the elephants. Then, they | | | | cause. The next time you see a piece of colorful |
| came up with an idea that would forever change the | | | | abstract art, find out who the artist is. You just may |
| way people regarded Thai elephants. | | | | be surprised at what you learn! |
