i (heart) odd-toed ungulates

One Lovely Day in the Life...

I was asked recently by a friend (and elemetary school art teacher) to create a short video for her students of my life as a professional illustrator: How does one day unfold for me; where do I collect inspiration; what sort of tools are specific to what I do; what DO I do - and what ever do I even look like?! These are big questions, with potentially complicated answers, and the truth is - I do a wide variety of things in order to keep the lights on and Oscar well fed. It seems I have fewer and fewer "typical" days... but if you asked me to generalize for a moment and describe a single, quintessential day, I'd quickly use words to paint a picture of what's been neatly put into moving images above.

As luck would have it, I am studio-mates with a world-class videographer (and all around amazing and very talented individual). Doubly fortunate for me, Steve (Stebs) Shinnerer of Paper Fortress Films had been interested in shooting an "A Day With..." portrait of me (as part of a larger creative series) since last fall... The timing finally right, we coordinated a day of interviewing and shadowing through multiple locations (including my beloved Franklin Park Zoo), and a few weeks later, the final edit was ready for it's debut - in front of dozens of eager first and second-graders... in Missouri... The resulting 4-minute project is darn near pitch-perfect - I actually find myself pausing to thank my sweet stars for this life every time I watch it (plus, it's chock full of cool animals... so, WIN).

As a supplement to the video, I took one of the sketches started during that one, lovely day, and developed it into a finished coloring page, so that each child in my friend's class could create their own work of art, inspired by an FPZ creature ("Azul", a hyacinth macaw, to be precise). Drawn in a similar style to a project I did for National Geographic.com years ago, the ink drawing is designed for easy print/download. If you'd like to color your own parrot, just click on the image below and print from your browser, or save to your hard drive!

A note to my few dear subscribers:
You may have noticed the silence here at the ungulate blog over the last 6+ months... it was with great disappointment that I had to suspend regular creature feature posting; life, as they say, is what happens when you make other plans. This little personal project, beloved as it may be to me, just couldn't compete with a host of professional projects and opportunities that have been courting my time and talents in increasing numbers. One of those time monopolizers was, I am so proud to say, training for the 2013 Boston Marathon. The big day of course turned horribly sad toward it's end, but I couldn't have been happier with my run, and the reason for my effort:

I ran the 2013 Boston Marathon on behalf of the Franklin Park Zoo. That's right, I took on the fundraising challenge of running 26.2 miles with a charity that couldn't fit me better if it were hand-tailored to my every measurement. I ran with 2 other beautiful, strong women, each of us pledging to raise $5,000.00 by the end of the summer.

The race may be over, but my fund-raising continues, and it's projects like the one above that make it crystal clear how important the Franklin Park Zoo is to the Boston community, and beyond. Perhaps especially in light of the tragic events at the end of the April 15th race, now is the time to support the institutions and organizations that enrich, enliven, entertain and educate this vibrant city. So, if you are inclined (and I would urge you to be!) PLEASE CONSIDER SUPPORTING MY MARATHON RUN with a donation. I trained for 3 months and put over 4 grueling hours on the race course - what can you do to make a difference in the lives of these animals and their tireless keepers?

Paper Tapir Challenge Results!

Thank you to everyone who submitted a tapir-mask photo in celebration of World Tapir Day! Each and every image made. my. day. There can be only one winner of my book givaway, however, and the hands down champion is shown above - I can't even begin to explain how thrilling it was to receive this image in my inbox. From the Twycross Zoo in Warwichshire, UK, this enthusiastic crew of tapir-keepers not only made 3 tapir masks (colored to differentiate between species!), they got their beautiful ungulate charges to pose with them for a photo!! It simply took my breath away - thank you to Sarah and her co-workers for the phenomenal submission, and for all of your dedication and hard work as caretakers and conservationists for such amazing critters.

Below, a few more of my favorite paper tapirs - BIG thank you to little Amaya, who patiently modeled the below series of photos on a rather unpleasant day to be outside... and I don't know about anyone else, but I'm already looking forward to World Tapir Day 2013!

World Tapir Day 2012

Hello, FRIDAY! And for those not already in the know, there's another, much more novel reason to delight in this fine 27th of April, 2012... it's World Tapir Day!! Oh yes. You heard that right - today is World Tapir Day - a most fitting occassion (if one needs an excuse) to celebrate, raise awareness, and otherwise spread the good word about one of the coolest odd-toed ungulates to saunter the underbrush of equatorial rainforests: the TAPIR. *Don't be fooled by the 4 toes on each front foot - they only have three on the back! Taxonomically speaking, they are odd-toes, and all 4 species are simply amazing...

I've posted on tapirs previously, having been aquainted a few summers ago with the brilliant family of 3 living at the Franklin Park Zoo - Milton, Annie, and Tupelo are Baird's tapirs, and Tupelo, like all baby tapirs, was a heart-breakingly cute wee thing covered head to toe in spots and stripes when she was born (few things rival newborn tapirs on the squee scale...). Baird's tapirs are one of the 3 tapir species native to Central and South America, where they are the largest land mammal (Baird's are smaller than the Malayan, but larger than the Brazilian and Mountain species). The fourth species, the Malayan, or Asian tapir, calls Malaysia, Thailand, and Sumatra it's home. There is some size range between tapir species, though all fall somewhere between 300 and 750lbs in adult weight. Crepuscular or nocturnal forest dwellers, they spend most of their time forraging for vegetation with their great ungainly snout, and contrary to their somewhat dumpy appearance (and I use that term only in the most affectionate way), they are marvelous swimmers. Favorite food (in captivity, at least)? Bananas.

Below, a visual summary of Tapirdom:


In honor of this wonderous day - and the magical fantastical tapir! - I've designed a template to make your very own tapir mask out of paper! It's super simple - you just need paper to print on, scissors, glue (tape will work in a pinch, but it won't look nearly as dashing), and some string. Click the SINGLE mask graphic below for a SMALL template (will print on one 8.5 x 11 sheet and fit only a very small child's head... To make a mask of more adult-noggin proportions, click on the DOUBLE mask graphic for a LARGE template - this will print on 2 letter-sized sheet which can be cut, afixed together, then traced onto a larger, single sheet of paper before assembling). *You can print on any color paper (brown craft looks surprisingly "tapir-y") or print on white and then color to match your favorite tapir species... seriously fun stuff here - go to it!





*CONTEST EXTENDED*
And in the spirit of craft and contest - I'm going to add a twist - anyone who sends me a photo of themselves - or their little ones - wearing the above tapir mask, will be entered into a drawing to win a copy of my illustrated zoo book, Tropical Forest! Milton, Annie, and Tupelo are featured on page 5... so get crafting! Customization to resemble any of the 4 tapir species is encouraged... This contest will be open for 5 days 7 DAYS - I'll pick the winner at 12 noon EST next Tuesday THURSDAY! Please email your photo submission to: natalya (at) natalya (dot) com - OR tweet it to @natalya_zahn

...And for further reading/viewing: discover the tapir's propensity for "tantrums"; check out a (not too rosey... and I would 100% agree) review of the taxidermied tapirs at my beloved HMNH; and explore research and conservation efforts, because all 4 tapir species are highly endangered due to habitat loss and hunting. Most of all, have fun - tapirs are awesome!  

*For more paper tapirs, check out this Japanese paper-craft website (downloadable pattern), and this origami animal site. And oh how I wish I were better at knitting... HAPPY TAPIR DAY!

Celebrating Fabulous Mr. Muybridge

Our lives in the 21st century are increasingly dominated by moving images - powerful camera and editing technologies makes it possible to endlessly manipulate (speed or slow frames) and accentuate certain actions, ultimately exposing the intricate movement of everything from humingbird wings in flight to the precise tongue flicks that a cat uses to lap milk. It's easy to take the accessibility of this visual information for granted, but 150 years ago, things that moved faster than the human eye and brain could register in sequence were mysteries left to artists to interpret. 

In 1872, a popular debate arose regarding whether a running horse's feet were ever in fact all 4 off the ground (as they appeared commonly throughout Victorian horse-racing art), or whether the stride required at least one hoof on the earth at any given point. In an attempt to settle the issue with visual evidence made by a device that "couldn't lie" (the camera), former governor of California, and racehorse owner, Leland Stanford commissioned English photographer Eadweard J. Muybridge to produce proof. After much study, experimentation, and the development of new techniques involving multiple cameras and carefully placed triggers, Muybridge delivered an irrefutable answer in 1877: a single photographic negative (one in a series) of Stanford's trotting horse, Occident, clearly shows the horse "floating", not a single toe touching the ground below. Further photographic series' of Stanford's Thoroughbred, Sallie Gardner, proved that not only was there also an unsupported point in the stride of a galloping horse, but that it occurred while all 4 legs were tucked beneath the body, as opposed to stretched out front and back, as was the common artistic depiction. The success of Muybridge's efforts prompted many more studies, with many more types of animals and actions, generating hundreds of thousands of images. These experiments also resulted in the zoopraxiscope - a precursor to cinematography and the motion picture.


Today marks the 182nd anniversary of the pioneering Eadweard J. Muybridge's birth. Muybridge's work fascinated me as a teenager and prompted numerous animated animal projects using tracings of his photos, and original drawings based on the studies. As a kid enamoured with anatomy, Muybridge's massive volumes of stills exploring the various gaits of dozens of different creatures, were a goldmine of reference imagery and inspiration for me. To this day my copy of Animals In Motion remains a powerful tool for researching form and gesture... So, a proper hat tip to Mr. Muybridge, for his incredible - and prolific - contributions to early scientific imaging and the arts.

The fantastic little video above was made in conjunction with a 2010 Muybridge exhibition at the Kingston Museum. To read more, check out eye magazine's little commentary on Muybridge's role as an artist; explore social scandals and multiple name changes here; and go look something up today! - Google Doodle for the day is a lovely tribute.

Knits & Purls for Penguins

On October 5th, not 2 years since the epic BP fail off the Gulf Coast caused the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, oceanic environmental tragedy struck again - this time 12 nautical miles off the east coast of New Zealand's North Island, in the Bay of Plenty. The threat: a loaded cargo ship (the Rena) run aground, hemmoraging oil, periodically dumping shipping containers from it's dangerously listing decks, and on the verge of fracturing into pieces with the next storm surge. The catastrophe is now the worst in New Zealand's maritime history, and it struck cruelly during breeding season for many native birds, who will now have to deal with sticky black tar as poisonous nest decorum.

In the scramble to clean up after such a devestating event, the desperately motivated can be counted on to get creative... With more and more oil-soaked birds washing onto New Zealand's beaches (over 1,200 casualties recorded so far) a unique and charming request was issued recently in an effort to aide the rescue and rehab of one of NZed's pluckiest avians - the penguin. What could these tiny tux-wearing birds need that trained wildlife cleaning crews couldn't provide? Sweaters! Yes, sweaters (aka "jumpers" in Kiwi-speak). You see, while waiting to be bathed (a thorough affair that can take over an hour per bird), there is a risk that ill, tar-soaked birds will try to preen out the gunk coating their feathers - injesting dangerous amounts of oil in the process. Sweaters provide a (jaunty) barrier between beaks and feathers - keeping oil out of penguin bellies - and they help warm birds that are highly stressed and uncomfortable, before and after being washed.

Grist.org reports that this is not the first mass call for penguin wooly-wear... Apparently, in 2001, the Tasmanian Conservation Trust thought it wise to try to bank penguin jumpers in preparation for a possible disaster: what began as a goal of 100 sweaters ended up with the reciept of roughly 1,000 after the request went viral and knitters got busy. Similar efforts have been launched to aide oil-soaked penguins off the coast of South Africa as well.


Above: an AP photo of a penguin sporting a jumper after a spill near Tasmania in 2000; a penguin, mid bath, photo from animaltracks.today.com (such a teeny little guy - so many blue latex fingers!); and a clean penguin recouping at a wildlife center in Tauranga, photo by Bradley Ambrose/Getty Images.

My travels around New Zealand this past summer were largely based out of Auckland - a few hours from Tauranga - and I had the pleasure of taking in the beauty of the Bay of Plenty coastline. My thoughts are with those who make this region their home. For photos of the Rena spill and it's effect on Tauranga beaches, see this gallery at the Guardian; read more about the spills effects on NZ's birds here; and see more pics of past penguin sweater endeavors here.   

As of this posting, the overwhelming and quick support of knitters around the world has once again filled the emergency closets of New Zealand's penguins with turtlenecks - but if you're curious, or would like to make your own penguin sweater for kicks, I've posted below the penguin jumper pattern, as found originally on the website of Skeinz, a Napier, New Zealand knit shop - *it should take able hands about an hour to craft:

Penguin Jumper in 8ply

Yarn
 (must be 100% wool)
1 pair 3.25mm , 1 pair of 3.75mm needles , 1 set of 3.25mm dpns or circular
Elastic (approx. 35cm)

- Cast on 36 stitches using 3.25 needles. K1, P1 to end of row.
- Repeat this row 7 times. Change to 3.75mm needles and K2, P2 rib.
- Work 4 rows increasing at each end of every row. (44 sts)
- Continue until work measures 15 cms.
- Decrease 1 st at each end of every row until 28 sts remain.
- Decrease 1 st. in middle of next row (27 sts.)
- Leave on needle.
- Make second side the same.
- Transfer the 54 sts from both pieces to 3 of the set of 4 3.25mm needles (18 sts on each) and work a round neck in K1 P1 rib for 10 rows.
- Cast off.
- Stitch up sides to decreasing to 27sts (opening for flipper). Add elastic to the top and bottom to prevent the penguins getting out of them. Top: 15cm of elastic; bottom 17 cm (knots allowed). Flat elastic is okay.

Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things. They push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.

~Steve Jobs 

The remarkable Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple computer, had nothing to do with ungulates, or animals of any sort. He was a designer, a maker, a leader, and above all, a tireless visionary, but the influence of his passionate life's work (Apple) profoundly changed my life as an artist and designer, beginning with my family's first Macintosh: I was most fortunate to have a father who was, I suspect, waiting with baited breath for the invention of computers since he was a mere tyke... when the Macintosh was released, we had one. Well before Macs were available to me at school, I was spending countless evening hours completing homework with PageMaker and McPaint - stone age programs by today's standards, but at the time, they still shamed the black and green-screen IBMs in my high-school typing class. By the time I was 16, my parents had built their own graphic design business - powered by a small office of Macs - we had multiple Macs stationed around the house, and at that point, since I spoke Adobe as a second language, I became the first to apply to a number of my chosen institutions of higher learning with an interactive portfolio delivered on CD-ROM - all made on a Mac.

Today, I write this post from the desktop G5 in my own illustration/design studio, with 2 Apple displays center stage, an iPod plugged in to my left, and my indispensable iPhone tucked into a sweater pocket. I have been branded, without a doubt, though rarely have I felt such brand loyalty more well deserved. RIP, Mr. Jobs. You didn't just change the world, you changed it multiple times over, and bettered it at every step.

Rock on Ribs

A literal combination of the Russian words "x-ray" (roentgen) and "self-publish" (samizdat), Roentgenizdat records were born out of underground cultural and political necessity. During the 1950s, while the western world was vibrating with a collective surge of intense music discovery (hello, rock and roll) the iron curtain over the Soviet Union prevented any of these sounds from legally entering the USSR. Vinyl, the medium of the day for pressing records, was nearly impossible to source economically, so records that did manage safe smuggling passage into the hands of hungry music lovers could not be easily copied and shared. The ingenius solution to this challenge came in the form of a plastic that was both common, and cheap (if not completely free via dumpster salvage): x-ray film.

There is no single individual credited with the innovation, and word is not 100% clear on exactly how it was done, but some intrepid and enterprising collective supposedly put to use converted phonographs to "press" records into the discarded films - dubbing contrabanned sounds right over the gostly images of human anatomy. Roentgenizdat recordings were predictably less robust than their vinyl parent records, and the thinner plastic made the records tempermental to play, and much shorter lived, but they cost a fraction of the price of vinyl records, and they enabled the sounds of Little Richard, Elvis Presley, John Coltrane, and Thelonious Monk, among so may others, to be heard by millions. 

Roentgenizdat records were distributed through the blackmarket until an official Soviet government "Music Patrol" clamped down, eventually breaking up the largest distribution ring in 1959, and sending all of the leaders to prison. Even the KGB couldn't completely extinguish the Roentgenizdat movement, but with the increasing availability of reel-to-reel tape recorders in following years, music fans could duplicate tracks in their own homes, negating the need for a vulnerable blackmarket system.   

See this gallery for more Roentgenizdat images - clicking on the song titles will also allow you to listen to an mp3 of each recording. Read more Roentgenizdat history here, and here, and if you're interested in a more metaphorical angle, click here to listen to a lecture/discussion on the connections between music, image, and methods of reproduction, titled "Music on Bones" by writer/scholar Eduardo Cadava, who has written a book by the same name. Now, rock on.

A Stranger on Coney Island

One of the more interesting dynamics of bird-watching, I'm learning, is that importance is given not only to the spotting and ID-ing of individual species (causing delight if it's one you've never seen before), but also to the location in which you've found it (causing delight if it's never been seen there before). Lucky beasts that they are, most birds have the ability to literally globe trot. Many make this an annual activity through the act of migration, along epic and predictable "flyways", but migrating or not, any bird that takes to the air risks finding itself lost in any number of directions. The ones who veer far enough afield become very interesting to anyone who can tell them apart from the rest of the feathered regulars in any given area.

Last week, amid crowds of the uber-regular seagulls that speckle the beaches and boardwalks of New York's Coney Island, a stranger was spotted: if you don't know a Black-headed Gull from a Herring Gull, you surely wouldn't have noticed it, but amidst the white and grey mobs fighting for discarded french fries was a highly unusual (for the East Coast of North America) Gray-hooded Gull. Side by side, the differences in coloration between the Gray-hooded and a "basic" Gull are pretty darn obvious, but not dramatic - it would take a birder to pick this guy out... though in a place as populous as NY, it was only a matter of time.

According to the New York Times, "A photo of the bird, Chroicocephalus cirrocephalus, was first reported on July 24 to eBird.org, a Web site run by Cornell University’s ornithology lab and the National Audubon Society." From there, word fanned out across birding websites and forums the world over, and dedicated birders from as far away as Chicago made haste to the beach in Brooklyn, hoping to catch a glimpse, and hopefully a great photo, of a bird that will make many "life lists" over the course of it's East Coast vacay. The Gray-hooded Gull's native range includes South America and Africa south of the Sahara - it has been officially recorded only once before in North America, on Dec. 26th, 1998, in Apalachicola Florida. So, while it may be but a variant of one of the most common birds in the States, genetically speaking, it's a great rarity here, and those who traveled over from even extended points west still saved themselves a few thousand miles to witness such a creature this far north.


Above, THE gray-hooded gull (left) photographed amid the fried dough and pretzel carts this weekend, next to a Herring Gull (right), the most common of the gulls. Aside from the obvious grey head, notice the deep red beak and legs on the gray-hooded gull, compared to the fleshy-pink legs and yellow bill (with a distinctive red spot on it's underside) of the Herring Gull. Photo credits: Gray-headed Gull by Elliotte Rusty Harold; Herring Gull by Allison Frost.  

Assuming this bird is in fact a wild individual (as opposed to a sanctuary or zoo escapee), and only temporarily side-tracked on the shores of the Big Apple (while his internal GPS "recalculates") - may luck be with you on your long flight home, jaunty Mr. Red-legs...

Farewell, Dear Knut

In early 2007, animal lovers the world over became captivated by the story of Knut, a polar bear cub born at the Berlin Zoo. The snow white, teddy-bear-come-alive was an instant attraction, but it was his unique circumstance that brought him unusual international attention, and massive controversy. One of 2 cubs born to 20-year-old circus refugee Tosca on December 5th, 2006, Knut and his brother were rejected by their mother at birth - a fate virtually no newborn bear in the wild could survive. Both babies were collected from their exhibit using an extended fishing net and hurried to veterinary care... only Knut survived, and it would be 44 days before he was released from an incubator.

Being born into captivity has it's life-saving perks, and with the dedicated efforts of zookeepers, little Knut was nurtured into polar bear childhood, but not without raising the hackles of animal rights activists - their argument: that the orphan should have been allowed to die - or be euthanized - in order to avoid an unnatural upbringing. Surely no animal born in captivity and confined to life in a zoo could have an entirely "natural" upbringing, but Knut, without the care of his mum, would imprint on his human caretakers and could possibly suffer psychological illness as he matured without the benefit of ever learning how to really be a bear. The campaign to end Knut's life was swiftly met with an outpouring of opposition, including protests by schoolchildren and letters to the zoo from around the globe, and quite predictably, Knut's life was not only spared but celebrated on a grand scale... And so began one of the greatest commercial successes of any captive animal in history.

Over the course of Knut's first year, the Berlin Zoo's attendance jumped 30%, and 2007 became the most profitable in all of the zoo's 163-year history. Merchandise extended beyond the gates of the park as themed plush toys, books, candy, and songs about the cub's cuteness rippled out to reach global consumers. In May the little bear got his own German Vanity Fair cover, shot by Annie Leibovitz (though he had to share the spotlight for the American version of the "Green Issue" with Leonardo DiCaprio). Nationally minted commemorative coins marked his first birthday, tabloids followed his foibles and diet troubles, and even after outgrowing his pint-sized button nose for the awkward proportions and yellow-tinged fur of an adolescent, Knut's celebrity status was unquestionable - he was a star.

Below: Annie Leibovitz's German Vanity Fair cover featuring the one and only Knut; Knut gracing a stamp in support of environmental awareness; Knut as imagined by the esteemed plush label, Steiff; and Knut in repose, photographed by John MacDougall/AFP/Getty Images.


While it took many zoo staff to make Knut's survival and vibrant infancy a success, there was one zookeeper in particular who was assigned the role of surrogate papa-bear: hand-feeding, bathing, and playing with the cub nearly round the clock, and bedding down on a mattress next to Knut's crate each night (not to mention lulling Knut off to sleep strumming Elvis songs on his guitar). The keeper, Thomas Dörflein - a Berlin Zoo veteran of 26 years - also accompanied the cub out on exhibit each day, which earned him a supporting role in many of the photographs and videos taken during Knut's young months; his constant care in the service of the rising baby star at one point awarded him Berlin's Medal of Merit in recognition. Dörflein and Knut were indeed a seemingly inseparable pair, though inevitably, the cuddly cub grew into a sizable adolescent, and after 18 months of daily interaction, with Knut weighing nearly 300 pounds, the man-bear relationship was deemed too dangerous by the zoo, and Dörflein was banned from further contact with his charge. Tragically, in September 2008, mere months after the zoo's decision, Thomas Dörflein, only 44, died of a heart attack.

Despite the indelible image of that perfect puffball of a babe, it would appear that ever since Knut's passage through the limelight of his infancy, headline after headline has plagued the poor bear, in that most cutting way reserved only for entertainment's brightest stars; from law suits over his earnings, to warnings of psychotic, attention-crazed behavior; from the untimely death of his beloved keeper, to a call for castration from PETA; even possible "eviction" from his Berlin Zoo home in late 2008, as the economy plummeted and money for his care ran thin. And though scandal couldn't rob him the crown of Berlin's prized mascot, on March 19th, 2011, dearest Knut succumbed to the weight of a life lived racked by fame. Last Saturday, as hundreds of zoo visitors looked on, the 4 year old bear paced, trembled, then fell inexplicably dead into the pool in his exhibit. Results of a necropsy are awaited to confirm exact cause of death, but for critics of Knut's exploited life, the news was bittersweet - closure to a tale as rich with suffering and opportunistic greed as it was full of adoration and shared joy. For everyone else, grief over this magnificent animal lost is, as it should be, heavy, but may it also be a catalyst for a deeper understanding of nature, nurturing, and compassion, as they exist between the ever intersecting lives of humans and animals.

The illustration below was done from a photograph by Sean Gallup/Getty Images of 3 month old Knut and his beloved zookeeper, Thomas Dörflein.

Bark the Vote, 2010

Those who stay away from the election think that one vote will do no good:
'Tis but one step more to think one vote will do no harm.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today's the day, friends, you know what to do.