Painting Pachyderms: Elephants As Artists. And Other Animals That Paint.

Imagine a gallery where the works hung on the walls aren't that of Picasso, Matisse and Gauguin, but instead by Pigcasso, Tillamook and Kooba. (True, Picasso was often referred to as an 'animal', but in this case, I'm talking about an actual animal).

The following video is pretty unbelievable (but is real and unaltered). If you can, watch it through to the end to see the finished painting.



Don't believe it? It's true.

Here's are 2 examples of finished pieces by the same elephant, Hong, in the video above, that recently sold for $500.00 a piece:



A bit more about the artist, Hong:

LOCATION: Chiang Mai, THAILAND
CAMP: Maetaman Elephant Camp
ART TEACHER: Khun Tossapol Petcharattanakool
ELEPHANT: Hong
SEX: Female
AGE: 8
MAHOUT: Mr. Noi Rakchang

HONG'S BIO: At six years old, Hong has a very curious nature. She loves to investigate everything and once managed to use her trunk to open the door of a truck. This kind of curiosity made Hong a natural candidate for artistic instruction. Two years ago, Hong began painting with her mahout, Noi Rakchang, and has steadily developed her skills. After learning how to paint flowers, she moved on to more advanced paintings. She now has two specialties. One is an elephant holding flowers with her trunk, and the other is the Thai flag. An elephant with so much control and dexterity is capable of amazing work. Just for clarification, with these realistic figural works, the elephant is still the only one making the marks on the paper but the paintings are learned series of brushstrokes not Hong painting a still life on her own.

If you want to see a gallery of elephant paintings and even purchase one, go here.

By the way, elephants aren't the only animals whose paintings are hung in galleries. There are several other four legged painters.


Above: A jack russell terrier named Tillie, with an impressive gallery of work, a schedule of showings and even a gift shop. (photos by Brooke Jacobs) See her whole site here


Above: Sammy, a foxhound mix, uses a paintbrush attached to a rubber bone to paint a canvas on June 12, 2007, at a gallery at Salisbury University in Salisbury, Md. Mary Stadelbacher, owner of Shore Service Dogs, has a collection of abstract paintings daubed by her three service dogs in training. (Photo: AP Photo/Matthew S. Gunby)


Above: Pinto, an accomplished painter for a Yucatan miniature pig, gets his snout into an original work of art on Feb. 23, 2006, at Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield, Ill. Using a selection of non-toxic primary colors, Pinto mixes them in innovative ways (hooves, snout, objects and sometimes food items) to create his one-of-a-kind masterpieces. (Photo: AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)


Above: Koopa, a Gulf Coast box turtle, creates a summer-themed custom ordered painting for a buyer in Australia at the home of his owner, Kira Varszegi in Hartford, Conn., on Aug. 24, 2004. Koopa's paintings sold on eBay for hundreds of dollars, and his pieces hang in 35 of the 50 states. (Photo: AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

Louis Vuitton & Murakami Go Camo: Monogramouflage

Blogs are abuzz about the Murakami Exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. But not so much about Murakami's own works, but more about the collaboration with Louis Vuitton's Marc Jacobs which yeilded Monogramouflage, a camo version of LV's famous monogram pattern, in both a light and dark version:



On April 3rd, Vuitton celebrated Takashi Murakami's "© Murakami" exhibition, a retrospective of the 46 year old artists' work, with a "Brooklyn Ball" at the Brooklyn Museum featuring a special performance by Kanye West, and the unveiling of the new camouflage print.



Currently the canvases (like the ones pictured below) are available in a limited edition of one hundred at the Brooklyn Museum in New York (but you can find several for sale on ebay at the moment) during an exhibition of Murakami’s work. Bags and other items featuring the new print will be available in June in the museum's hosted "pop up" store to coincide with the exhibit.

Below are images from the opening night and of the Monogramouflage canvases, which measure 16" x 16" each, are sold in a limited edition and are framed, boxed and come with letters of authenticity.










And some other images of the exhibit:

Above: "DOB in the Strange Forest" by Takashi Murakami, a 1999 FRP Resin, fiber glass and acrylic installation work, will be on display as part of the exhibition "Murakami" at the Brooklyn Museum in New York through July 13.

Above: "Second Mission Project ko2" by Takashi Murakami, a 1999 installation work consisting of oil paint, acrylic, synthetic resins, fiberglass and iron


Above left: "DOB Camouflage". Above right: "The Castle of Tin Tin" by Takashi Murakami, a 1998 acrylic on canvas work mounted on board

To see a Flickr set of some of the large installations from the exhibit, go here.

NOTCOT has some nice coverage of the 'counterfeit' aspect of the exhibit, Louis Vuitton's tongue in cheek way of fighting fakes, including some great pics of the 'faux' street vendors and more.

©Murakami'' continues through July 13 at the Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway. Information: +1-718-638-5000; http://www.brooklynmuseum.org. The corporate sponsor is DLA Piper. The show travels next to the Museum fur Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt and the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao.

You can read a review of the show by Linda Yablonsky here.

Futiro Designer VoIP Handsets Sound As Good As They Look

Above: Futiro's Luna, Terra and Solo



Above: The Futiro Luna

Futiro has three different USB handsets for VoIP (voice over internet protocol), all of which are wonderfully designed and have also been commended for their functionality.

The Futiro range of VoIP phones was highly commended in the recent IDI design awards. The IDI design awards were established in 1997 to celebrate the excellent standard of design achieved by Irish designers. They cover a range of designs and are judged by a distinguished panel of international jurors.


Above : The Futiro Terra

And Mac Life magazine named Futiro's Luna as an editor's choice:

"The Luna sounds as good as it looks"

"Call us shallow, but one of the things we like most about the Futiro Luna is the way it looks. The sleek black crescent is right at home next to our MacBook and black video iPod. (It also collects fingerprints just as easily as the iPod.) The form is a perfect complement to the function, which provided almost everything we wanted in a handset.

The Luna provided the best sound quality of any handset in our testing, especially in Skype-to-Skype calls."

"For those who value form as much as function, the Futiro Luna is a compelling choice."

"The Futiro Luna had that special combination of sleek style and user-friendly functionality that elevated it above the others."
---- Mac Life

Above: The Futiro Solo




Unique Free Standing Design
Handsfree Functionality
Ideal for Conference Calling
SKYPE Compatible - Windows & Mac

Supported Technology:
* H.323 & SIP
* AOL Instant Messenger
* BT Softphone
* Cisco IP Communicator
* eyeBeam
* Gizmo5
* Google Talk
* iChat
* MagicJack
* Microsoft Office Communicator
* Net2Phone
* Polycom PVX
* Siemens optiClient 130s
* SJphone
* Skype
* SwyxIt!
* Vonage Softphone
* Windows Live Messenger
* X-Lite
* Yahoo! Messenger

Learn more about them and buy them here.

Viktor and Rolf New Handbags Hit The Market!

Wacky design duo Viktor & Rolf have released their first plenty talked about handbag collection. Reports that they were coming out with a collection of purses and clutches surfaced on blogs last fall, but they are finally available- at least from the ultra hip store, Colette.



The line is comprised of handbags and clutches for day or night that incorporate their signature design motifs into the handbags by either stamping their logo into the leather or it's attached as a pendant. Their 'bow' is woven into the chain. The 'flowerbomb' diamond shape is either the clasp of the clutch or the stud on a city bag.

The handbag designs at Colette are different (better, actually) than the bags introduced last year on such blogs as Luxist and Fabsugar. And, in expected Viktor & Rolf's irreverent style, each handbag has a fun name: Good Evening, Just A Moment, What's Up, and I'm Fine.






So far, I haven't been able to find them anywhere else (not even Viktor and Rolf's online boutique), so if you want to be an early adopter, get them here.

Don't forget to check out Viktor & Rolf's 2008 fall collection here.

And their wild upside down boutique in Milan here.