
l to r: Damnoen Surang u-patham mahout (handler) to Elephant Artist Kham Tool, Elephant-Paintings.com owner Scott Rosenberg and Nopawan Komyoung of Maetaman Elephant Camp and E.L.E. (Elephant Life Experience)
My assistant Chaiwat and I traveled around to some of the elephant camps last week to see how they were fairing in the economic downturn AND of course to stock up on elephant paintings for the up-coming holiday season.
We didn't find much new in the way of designs but we did find advanced use of colors and at Maetaman, they have gone "green" setting up a small factory that produces elephant dung paper for their Elephant Artists to paint on.
What was unusual, at the Ayuthaya Royal Elephant Kraal, which used to have their elephant paintings on dung paper, have gone back to using regular poster board. Apparently the Australian Agricultural Department has not cleared dung paper for import and most of the guests to the Ayuthaya Kraal are from Australia.
Another interesting note, back in August 2009 a team shooting for National Geographic was at Maetaman doing a special on Elephant Artist Hong painting her self-portraits. The special has yet to air on the National Geographic Channel but you can be sure when it does, it will spark a renewed interest in Hong's paintings (of which we have several in stock).
We have had to increase our prices slightly to meet international market demand on the Hong paintings however we are still less expensive then elsewhere on-line. However, the Hong paintings still appreciate in value.
Overall traffic is down a bit at the camps - a result of fewer tourists traveling becasue of the recession but overall we are told business is not that bad.
Which, as you can see from the short video below is good - since it only takes banas to run an elephant camp.
Visit us at www.Elephant-Paintings.com

