measuring life in elephants

a friend once gave a eulogy for an elderly woman who was an inveterate traveller. she had seen, met and/or ridden several elephants in her travels, and my friend suggested that encounters with elephants was a laudable measure of a human life.

there is something about elephants.

they convey both magnifence and melancholy, wisdom and whimsey.

similar to certain gum trees.

which i like because the trunks and boughs of some gums dimple and wrinkle so that they resemble the sagginess of elephant skin.

i like the way elephants can command respect even while they look a bit goofy.

i started thinking about elephants because i saw a guy strolling down the street wearing a tee-shirt with a small elephant scarpering off towards his right armpit.

it reminded me of a 60s illustration. and also a dozen documentaries and images of baby elephants trotting along, sometimes trunk to tail, sometimes independently. including the rather gorgeous scene in Hatari! with Henry Mancini's Baby Elephant Walk
the thing with elephants is that once you start thinking about them, all these associations and ideas come flooding in.

like elephant painting - i visited the MCA in Sydney in 2001 and was introduced to the world of elephant painting. the work on show was fairly abstract expressionist. it was beautiful! i watched a documentary in wonder, and heard how the Asian Elephant Art & Conservation Project was helping elephants adjust to a post-work life (they used to haul logs) and that painting, and the continuing companionship and encouragement of their mahouts was really important to them. it transpires that elephants have individual styles and one in particular was a temperamental artist, and would choose her colours and some days would refuse to paint because she didn't feel like it. although abstract expressionism isn't innate to elephants, some are incredibly good! Nanchok, for example, does a pretty fine cy twombly.

actually is it just me, or is there an elephant in this "abstract"?