Thai Elephants (Elephas maximus): Asian Elephant Art and Conservation, Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid

Asia’s elephants are one of two surviving -- but threatened -- genera in the otherwise extinct Elephantidae family of trunk- and tusk-equipped elephants and mammoths.  Their common, non-scientific, popular designation definitely comes from the ancient Greek word ἐλέφας (elephas) and possibly derives from the extinct Phoenician language in what is now configured as the West Asian countries of:

• Israel;
• Jordan;
• Lebanon;
• Syria.

Their binomial (“two-name”), scientific, taxonomic identification draws upon the decision-making in 1758 of Småland-born Swedish nobleman Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707 – January 10, 1778), as:

• Botanist;
• Ecologist;
• Physician;
• Taxonomist;
• Zoologist.

Its most up-to-date expression is, as the respective genus and species, Elephas maximus, with the Latin adjective translating as “eldest, greatest, largest, oldest, most powerful.”

Scientists additionally access trinomial (“three-name”) subdivisions of:

• Genera into species;
• Species into subspecies.

They assume that bio-geography prevents subspecies from producing fertile offspring through:

• Interbreeding;
• Intra-specifically hybridizing.

They differentiate subspecies by:

• DNA coding sequences;
• Morphology (external color, pattern, shape, structure; internal form and structure).

They include as Asia’s extant subspecies:

• Bornean elephants (Elephas maximus borneensis), per Paulus Edward Pieris Deraniyagala (May 8, 1900 – December 1, 1976), 1950;
• Indian (E.m. indicus) -- of Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Viet Nam -- per Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier (August 23, 1769 – May 13, 1832), 1798;
• Sri Lankan (E.m. maximus);
• Sumatran (E.m. sumatranus), per Coenraad Jacob Temminck (March 31, 1778 – January 30, 1858), 1847.

All of Asia’s elephant subspecies find their life cycles and natural histories defined by:

• Degraded niches within reduced grassland and shrinking dry and moist deciduous, evergreen, and semi-evergreen forest habitats;
• Environmental pollution of air, land, and water resources;
• Expanded urban and reduced wildland interfaces;
• Modern predation by agro-industrialists;
• People-friendly, wildlife-unfriendly forest corridors;
• Traditional predation by poachers.

The sustainability of all Asia’s populations unfortunately gets determined therefore by rampant or restricted perceptions of the widespread appeal and usefulness of each subspecies. That perception historically is defined by such societal sectors as:

• Agro-industry through forest clearances;
• Entertainment through circus performances;
• Military through overland campaigns;
• Religion through Hindu rituals.

It nowadays reflects benefit and cost analyses of elephant net worth.

Four Thailand-linked initiatives contemporaneously advance Asian elephant well-being and worth. Owner/operator Blake Dinkin’s Black Ivory Coffee Co. Ltd. benefits Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation elephant and mahout (trainer) families near Ananatara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp & Resort at Chiang Saen, Chiang Rai Province. Government incentives concern:

• The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment’s state enterprise, the Forest Industry Organization, operating the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre at Lampang, Chiang Mai Province, since 1993;
• The Secretariat to the Prime Minister promoting National Elephant Day every March 13^th since 1998.

Moscow-born Russian conceptualist artists Vitaly Anatolyevich Komar (born September 11, 1943) and Alexander Melamid (born July 14, 1945) share honors as Asian Elephant Art and Conservation Project co-founders in 1998.

The Asian Elephant Art and Conservation Project exhibits and sells elephant-realized art at New York’s Endangered Artists Gallery. It functions as a Brooklyn-based 501c3 charity organization by:

• Developing affordable, non-toxic paints for caretakers, children, and elephants;
• Educating elephant caretakers and trainers;
• Establishing conservation agencies against poaching and for wild re-introductions;
• Funding libraries, schools, sanitation projects, and water works for caretaker and trainer families;
• Fundraising;
• Managing elephant-protected wild habitats;
• Offering veterinary scholarships in pachydermology;
• Teaching elephants and trainers to paint.

The project honors Moscow-born writer Sergey Vladimirovich Mikhalkov’s (March 13, 1913 – August 27, 2009) fable of 1947 about an elephant’s painting:

• Cloudless skies for alligators;
• Leaf-laden, tall trees for walruses;
• Logs and shrubs for hedgehogs;
• Mud-baths for pigs.

The project considers precedents in:

• Captive elephants creating sand-doodles with trunk-held sticks;
• Elephants painting in Berlin, Germany during the 1930s.

It consults Abstract Expressionism by such North American zoo-confined artists as:

• Annabelle (1965 – 1997) in Anchorage, Alaska;
• Kamala in Calgary, Alberta, Canada;
• Mary in Little Rock, Arkansas;
• Renee in Toledo, Ohio;
• Ruby (1973 – 1998) in Phoenix, Arizona;
• Scarlett O’Hara in Atlanta, Georgia;
• Siri in Syracuse, New York;
• Winky in Sacramento, California.

It defers to Alexander’s and Vitaly’s instructional facilitation of:

• Bird’s and Nom Chok’s anxious, dark green- and violet-marked Dynamism at Ayutthaya Elephant Art Academy;
• Bok Bak’s cool earth and green Atmospherism at Surin;
• Lukkang’s, Lukkop’s, and Phratida’s lyrical green and yellow Expressionism / Impressionism at Lampang.

Asian elephants are Earth’s second-largest land animals after Africans (Loxodonta spp). They belong on world lists of:

• Modern descendants of extinct sub-Saharans;
• Super-endangered animals.

They distinguish themselves physically by:

• 5 -- not 4 -- and 4 -- not 3 -- nails per respective front and rear feet;
• Male-only tusks;
• Rounded, small -- not large, triangular -- ears;
• Shoulder height 6.57 – 9.84 feet (2 – 3 meters), not 8.20 – 13.12 feet (2.5 – 4 meters);
• Single -- not double – trunk-end flaps;
• Weight 4,499.64 – 11,001.07 pounds (2,041 – 4,990 kilograms), not 5,000.08 – 13,999.35 pounds (2,268 – 6,350 kilograms).

Through domestication, they emerge as:

• Artists;
• Entertainers;
• Loggers;
• Mountaineers;
• Porters;
• Warriors.

Their sustainability involves:

• Elephant-friendly organizational patronage;
• Environmental education;
• Government support;
• Scientific research;
• Wildlife-loving activism.

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet. 

Vivid images are evoked via childhood stories of Alexander Great and the elephant cavalry of King Porus of ancient Indian kingdom of Paurava.
"Alexander accepts the surrender of Porus" by André Castaigne (January 7, 1861 - 1929): Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexander_accepts_the_surrender_of_Porus.jpg

Borneo elephants (Elephas maximus borneensis): Asian elephant subspecies
PLoS Biology Issue Image / Vol. 1(1) October 2003: "Borneo elephants, a genetically distinct taxon native to Borneo.": Cede Prudente, World Wildlife Fund, Malaysia, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Borneoelephants.jpg

Sri Lankan elephant (Elephas maximus maximus): subspecies of Asian elephant (Elephas maximus)
Yala National Park, southeastern Sri Lanka: Ulf Rydin (ulfrydin), CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elephas_maximus_maximus.jpg

Canadian Blake Dinkin, creator and owner of Black Ivory Coffee, partners with Ban Taklang in Surin, lower northeastern Thailand, and with The Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation (GTAEF)to produce his expensive, rare, elephant-curated coffee.
Blake Dinkin with Black Ivory coffee beans: newsonline, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr@ https://www.flickr.com/photos/55361146@N08/8942408106/

Russian-born Conceptualist artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid team together artistically as Komar and Melamid (ca. 1967-2003) and as co-founders of
Asian Elephant Art and Conservation Project (1998).
"Meeting Between Solzhenitsyn and Bell at the Dacha of Rostropovich," 1972 oil on canvas, gold leaf, paper by Komar and Melamid: cea + (Cea.), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/centralasian/4837892756/

Vitaly Komar with Dondi: poised for artistry
DUMBO Arts Festival, Brooklyn, New York: September 2007: Maryanne Ventrice, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/maryanne67/1460513218/

Nine-year-old Hong's natural curiosity drives her artistry; learning to paint at age 7, she specializes in painting the Thai flag and portraits of elephants with flowers.
Maetaman Elephant Camp, Mae Rim district, central Chiang Mai Province, northern Thailand: ckmck, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/selipu/3445073832/

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Painting by Hong, represented by Asian Elephant Art & Conservation Project
Maetaman Elephant Camp, Mae Rim district, central Chiang Mai Province, northern Thailand: ckmck, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/selipu/3444261657/

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