Animalau Blog

Carved animals

-Christie

I just drew whatever I wanted!

for my friend, CK! Her zodiac is a tiiiggggger

-Christie

Another piece from the Angry Party Series! Alpine ibexes were thought to be magical animals that could be used for potions. They were almost pursued to extinction when the King of Sardinia proclaimed that only the royal family can hunt them. Imagine a court dance!

Toronto has a flea market called the “Heritage Antique Market” that takes place once a month. I was most interested in these little engravings done by Scottish artist, William Home Lazars (from Sir William Jardines’ publication in 1840).

plates by Lazar (and wood carving from Africa, and antique rose bowl turned paintbrush holder!... and shell from Michael's craft store.. ahahhaha)

Jaguar by Frederick De Wit ("Lumen Picturae" 1660) and Bear by Mme Rebel (1840). I got the beast Bear from the South of France last year

I love them because they’re totally bizarre with their neatly groomed fur and presumed species personality! These are drawings by artists without seeing the animals alive or in full and at a time when photography was just primitive. Nevertheless, they are infused with imagined character and liveliness and although published in scientific contexts and should serve as an ultimate model for the species, they exist more as a collection of personalities.

The medieval way of thinking about animals granted them souls with sentience, making them also responsible for their actions. This means animals could be brought into court and hire attorneys! At the time period of these engravings, however, the popular belief was that animals had no souls and were machines and thus unable to reason (“The Moral Lives of Animals” by Dale Peterson). I think it’s beautiful that despite these ideas, the animals are interpreted with such human-like expressions in these etchings.

"Felis Leo" and "Flat-Nosed Rhinoceros" by Lazar. Innocent and kind big-headed lion with grumpy puffy lips

My two favourites were the cheetah and mandrill and I wanted to give them to my friend, who is my animal everything buddy. When I put the two of them together, I was visually reminded of the National Geographic programme, “Eye of the Leopard”, and the viral excerpt of the leopard who kills a mother baboon but tries to care for a baby baboon, its natural enemy and prey in the wild.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdHjRZki9Qc

I thought their relationship was a good symbol for my friendship with her because it’s so intense and rare!

faces of the mandrill and cheetah by Lazar

From human expressions in engravings to amazing rare footage of a leopard that seems to have moral compassion, we still use our understanding of ourselves to understand animals. And I don’t think they’re machines!!

I made it so that she can hang this across her wall, like a travelling picture frame/card!

-Christie

This tree is just outside my window. It has had full branches of hard red berries since the summer and I used to wonder why none of the animals would consume them. I even tried feeding them to some raccoons! The cornucopia of this sad red berry brought me to the conclusion that they were probably poisonous (and then I felt bad about the raccoons!)

Finally, in December, I detected movement outside my window. On one of the branches there was a black squirrel shoving evil berries into its mouth, and on the tree next to it, there was a brownish red one having the same menu. For the next few weeks, it was like that- a black one on my tree, and a reddish one on the other, safely eating harmless berries.

One day, I saw a pair of cardinals on my tree too! I realised that the animals were saving these berries for the winter, when life gets tougher for all Canadians.

I am so impressed with such self restraint, wise preparation and act utilitarianism from the animals! Nothing blooms in winter, but good things can last throughout.

I also learned that I should not pick berries prematurely in the summertime for raccoons (in case I start a famine).

Remember the coffee doodle I made? I used it in my new business card!

And also used Doe 5 from my previous series.

let's make contact!

1,2,3

ONE.

The first business card was foolishly time consuming because I like hand made cards. I also sprayed them all with perfume!!!! Like they were love letters!

TWO.

This one was even more stupidly time consuming, and I still have a whole bag of them because I couldn’t give them away. Pfff…just in case I forgot my first name, website or e-mail.

THREE.

photoshop. The future is now!

-Christie

Black lines on the cheeks of football players, cheetahs and the white-crested laughingthrush. Ra ra Steelers!

sketch from the zoo

Laughingthrush sound like: RA. REE! RA RA RA REE RA RA REE REE REE

Can listen for real at: laughingthrush sound
The bird gets really hysterical near the end of the clip!

-Christie

The African cheetahs were almost wiped out after the ice age. I hope you all survived this miserably cold weekend!! I was up on Mt. Tremblant trying to ski, and it was -33 degrees celsius.

BBC’s Earth News just published an article about a unique subspecies of cheetahs! These are Asiatic cheetahs, which split from their African friends 30 000 years ago. The cheetah population crash, however, was around 10 000 years ago so these Asian cheetahs have a very different lineage.  Therefore, to conserve biodiversity, these Asian cheetahs shouldn’t breed with the African ones, even though cheetahs as a species are critically endangered.

To read more: Iran’s endangered cheetahs are a unique subspecies

I did a piece on the declining genetic stability of the cheetah this past summer. I will post it after this post!

-Christie