Wildlife artist Ken Carlson (born 1937) learned to draw animals at the zoo." Eventually the director gave him the keys to the animal cages so that he could go there at night after work."
"'At night I would turn on the lights in the zoo and sketch. I worked in the pens, wearing a keeper's jacket. One day I went into the elk pen to get photographs of him bugling, and the animal charged and almost killed me."
"After that,' Carlson says wryly, 'I lost my zoo privileges and spent a week in the hospital. I had paid my dues as a wildlife artist."
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| Bugling elk by Ken Carlson |
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Book: From the Tundra to Texas: The Art of Ken Carlson
Quotes from: Wildlife Artists at Work
by Patricia van Gelder
Bio of Ken Carlson at the National Museum of Wildlife Art
Quotes from: Wildlife Artists at Work by Patricia van GelderBio of Ken Carlson at the National Museum of Wildlife Art
I got to go in our local game farm and take pics for postcards for their gift shop. I went in with one resource officer to each area. The only area that gave me any pause was the mountain lions...since the resource officer had no sprays or weapons I asked him what we were going to do if either of the cats came after us...his response..."Get eaten I guess." Good times. But I was glad I got an opportunity not many people get.
ReplyDeleteDomino’s Pizza was once owned by Tom Monaghan, who greatly admired Frank Lloyd Wright. Under Monaghan’s direction, the corporate headquarters outside Ann Arbor feature a low, half-mile long Prairie style building with about 90 bison grazing nearby. A few years ago, I was interested in depicting this for the cover of a local monthly magazine. To gather reference photos and sketches, I was granted permission to spend an hour riding amidst the hay bales as two workers pitched hay off the flatbed to the bison. There is a world of difference between seeing a fully-grown male bison from fifty feet away as opposed to five feet. This proximity was unforgettably exciting, but not life-threatening; my only mishap was landing in the abundant bison dung when leaping off the flatbed. If only the Copro Carts had made a recent pass...
ReplyDeleteAh. Bugling. For the longest time I was reading bulging ... couldn't imagine what you were getting at. gj
ReplyDeleteI used to live in Jackson Hole, and had a friend that worked at the Elk Refuge. Well, I got to ride on the back of the feed trucks(hanging on like trash collectors used to do, by a rail on the back), and count elk in the winter. It was really great to see them five to ten feet away, although I was always sure to hang on tight, didn't seem like it would go well if I fell off, even if they weren't in the rut.
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