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Pathomsompob

In October of 2009, Thailand's H.M. King Bhumibol Adulyadej named this handsome elephant Phlai Pathomsompob, after the brave general of the same name. Previously known as A.I. due to his origin, Pathomsompob was born March 7, 2007. Pathomsompob is the first elephant in Asia to be to be conceived through artificial insemination.

Worried about the decline in the elephant population, veterinarians at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center (TECC) took to the task of artificial insemination with the collaboration of the Veterinary Medicine faculties at both Kasetsart and Chiang Mai Universities, as well as with sponsorship from several NGOs. Their mission is to facilitate elephant breeding in a natural environment.

Pathomsompob's father is Japatee, and his mother is Phung-kod. The medical staff at TECC kept a close watch and selected Thantawan, a female elephant, to protect the newborn Pathomsompob from his mother. In the wild, mother elephants at first reject their offspring and may attack them in case of a painful birth, so another female instinctively steps in to protect the calf. Another elephant and Novica featured elephant artist, Phumphuang was called upon as a wet nurse since her own two-year old calf, Aleena (also Novica featured artist), had been recently weaned.

Pathomsompob is a healthy elephant, however he does expect his bananas to be peeled and he will spit out the bagasse out whenever eating sugar canes. He is generally an enthusiastic and wise pachyderm, but he can be stubborn, weep easily and sniffle. Pathomsompob’s artistic talents include painting and playing the angklung - a traditional Thai instrument crafted with bamboo.

For centuries, elephants earned their keep by hauling trees for Asia's logging industry. Deforestation and logging restrictions led to massive unemployment for the elephants, with the result that many, dependent on keepers who could no longer afford to care for them, simply died of neglect. The Asian elephant population dwindled, and these magnificent animals became an endangered species.

In 1998, searching for new ways to raise rescue funds and worldwide public awareness, elephant expert and author Richard Lair, advisor to the royal Thai Elephant Conservation Center (TECC), conceived of a novel plan. He invited to Asia two media savvy, New York-based conceptual artists – Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid – to help him create a publicity campaign while training rescued Asian elephants to paint. Art Historian Mia Fineman traveled with Komar and Melamid to Asia, helping write "When Elephants Paint," a fascinating book about the venture. (The book notes that wild elephants naturally doodle on the ground with twigs and pebbles – a proclivity that might explain the ease with which they take to painting.)

As a result of Lair's project, numerous elephants learned to paint in Asia, and hundreds if not thousands of news reports have brought the story of this endangered species to the world's attention.

Today, under the ongoing tutelage of Richard Lair, ten of the TECC's 48 elephants participate in regular painting sessions. During these sessions, the sanctuary elephants stand contentedly before easels, entertaining themselves by wrapping the tips of their trunks around artists' brushes, dipping those brushes into buckets of colorful paints, and then sweeping the paint up, down, and across paper canvases.

The TECC artists are now the most famous paintings elephants in the world. Their paintings, compared by some critics to the works of such renowned abstract expressionist artists as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Kline, have been exhibited internationally and have auctioned for thousands of dollars apiece at such august venues as Christie's.

In 2002, Novica offered to assist Richard Lair by featuring the Asian elephants' paintings online, making them more accessible to the general public. Since then, a new wave of media attention has again focused on the plight of the Asian elephant, and thousand more people have purchased paintings -- helping raise considerable funds for the TECC in Thailand, and for a separate rescue center in Bali.

Richard Lair provides Novica with the TECC's highest quality elephant paintings, directly overseeing special "Novica Sessions" with the TECC elephants. For these sessions, the elephants paint on French archival paper, using high quality acrylic paints. (This in contrast to the elephant paintings sold in Asia to tourists – typically composed of low-quality paints on non-archival paper.) Lair completes the process by embossing each painting with an official stamp of authenticity. For Novica, Lair comments that he rejects all but the most intriguing and unblemished paintings, as an additional way to thank Novica's customers for their considerable support, while providing a high quality painting in return.

Interestingly, the TECC is also home to the Thai Elephant Orchestra, the world's first elephant orchestra and the first orchestra in which animals play instruments (as opposed to their own song) with "serious musical intent." The Thai Elephant Orchestra, under the direction of Richard Lair and Dave Soldier, has produced three fundraising CDs, available through Amazon.

Meanwhile, Richard Lair continues his efforts to raise awareness and financial support for the elephants of Asia. In 2008 Lair traveled to Nepal to teach yet another group of eager elephant artists to paint, in the hopes that they, too, would enjoy learning how to help fund their own upkeep.

Novica asked Lair about the legitimacy of a much-talked-about 2008 elephant "self portrait" (the making of which, at a different Thai elephant camp, was captured on video). Lair explained that the elephant's "mahout" (handler) clearly directed the painting, standing just off-camera, holding the elephant's "tush" (small, sensitive tusk) to carefully guide the elephant's trunk in precise flourishes, creating the sensational result.