Volume 2, No. 16. August 23, 2002
The
sea lion says, 'Art! Art! Art!'
For our special AZA edition of THE LOOP last year we posted the first-ever cyber
art gallery of paintings by animals at several North American zoos. The gallery
features works by pachyderms, porpoises, penguins, pigs and a rhinoceros.
This year we recall that special art show with contributions from two California
sea lions at the Oklahoma City Zoo in Oklahoma. Sixteen-year-old Moe and 17-year-old
Midge have been painting canvases since March, though trainers Laura Bottaro
and Julie Bledsoe began teaching the behavior in January.
"We just thought it would be a new and interesting training behavior for
them," Bottaro said. "When we decided to do it we thought it was important
that at least half the money made from their paintings go toward a rehab center,"
specifically the San Pedro Marine Mammal Care Center in California. Bottaro
said she had taught a sea lion to paint when she worked at Sea Life Park in
Hawaii before coming to the Oklahoma City Zoo. The Oklahoma City sea lions do
painting sessions "randomly, very randomly," Bottaro said, usually
scheduling them no more than once a month.
The behavior is simple. The trainers get the sea lions to target on a canvas,
hand them a brush dipped in tempera non-toxic paint and let them apply strokes
of their fancy. Because sea lions are color blind, all they care about is the
flow of strokes. Moe, as shy and reserved as sea lions come, was slow to take
up his art. "He's a big chicken," Bledsoe said. When he finally started
painting, he tended to merely blot splotches of paint on the canvas, though
now he does works of timid and sparse strokes.
Midge is all over the canvas with her brush. "She has so much energy, and
painting helps release that," Bledsoe said. In fact, in some painting sessions
she is so all over the canvas that paint ends up all over her and her habitat.
"We're going to have a very colorful exhibit one of these days," Bledsoe
said of the paint spattering on the rock structures.
Below is a sample of Midge's artistry, and by clicking your cursor on the painting
you will go to our cyber art gallery featuring THE Loop's full catalog of animal
art.
To visit THE LOOP Art Gallery, click here
©2002, Minton Enterprises
LLC
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