"Ardila's friendly nature and willingness to learn appealed to her mahout and the two quickly became friends."

Ardila is a female elephant born in the wild in 1980.  In 1995 she was found wandering around local farmlands and on December 5th of that year she was welcomed at the Way Kambas Training Center in South Sumatra.

It is believed her parents were wild elephants too, therefore their names and whereabouts are unknown.  Ardila immigrated to Bali in February 1997 and started painting lessons in March of 2001.  She makes a slow apprehensive approach towards the easel, but once started her strokes are strong and positive.  You can tell she enjoys her newfound talent by the look on her face as she paints, there's a definite smile!

Ardila's friendly nature and willingness to learn appealed to her mahout (keeper) and the two quickly became friends.

She weighs a respectable 3970 pounds (1800kg). See the Elephant Art Gallery!

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.  With fewer and fewer elephants surviving in South and South-East Asia, Asian elephants are now on the endangered species list.

To reverse this trend, dedicated men and women throughout South and South-East Asia have created various sanctuaries for elephants, striving to preserve this majestic species.  Now, aided by members of the international art community and conservationists, these sanctuaries have trained a handful of elephants in the delicate art of painting - as one way to help the animals help themselves, raising funds as well as awareness.

The elephants' paintings, compared by some critics to the works of such great abstract expressionist artists as Jackson Pollock, Williem de Kooning and Franz Kline, have been exhibited internationally and have fetched thousands of dollars apiece at Christie's auction house.

Interestingly, elephants commonly pass time by doodling on the ground with sticks and pebbles.  "Teaching them to draw rewards that behavior, using different tools," suggests New York art historian Mia Fineman.  Fineman believes that the idea that only humans can create art is an "artificial construct" of the art world.  "Elephants are motivated by something beyond functionality," Ms Fineman said, "and this is called art."

By making the Asian elephants' paintings widely accessible to the general public, Bali Adventure Tours hopes to help increase awareness, encourage conservation, and raise significant funds to assist endangered elephants throughout Asia.

Grab this opportunity to own a unique work of art and help support one of Asia’s most endangered and forgotten species. Click on the link below to view the range of Elephant artisan works and help save a Sumatran elephant.