Tag Archives: sketches

I have been listening to a both astonishing and heart breaking story of a chimp named Lucy on the RadioLab Podcast. If you are interested in pan-ape studies and behavioral research check it out.

The stories of Lucy and Kanzi promted me to remember a chimp encounter I had when I went to the Zoo (Zoologischer Garten in Berlin) with my girl friend about five years ago. We’d often go to one of the Zoos in Berlin to do some animal life drawing. This time I had spent most time in the tunnel where the apes are living. Many groups of visitors would scoop by to see the apes that are seperated from us by thick glass walls. Parents would take pictures and the kids would laugh histerically as some of the chimp youngster made offensive finger signs that they must have picked up from other visitors. Most of the elder chimps would be rather unimpressed, tend their youngens or just kind of hang out while scores of people made pictures and stare at them. When I went up close to the glass with my sketch book, one of the older chimp moms must have caught interest with the unusually cluncy thing I held infront of me and approach me. She took a seat directly infront of me and observed me observe her and what I was doing with the my hands. As I was drawing, more and more visitors came up near and soon a large group of people surrounded me, realising that the chimp was sitting there as if just for me to draw a portrait. As more and more people joined, my discomfort grew as drawing is something intimate for me and I don’t like some strangers looking over my shoulder and making remarks even if they mean well. But also, I was afraid that the large noisy group of humans would eventually drive my subject away. But the opposite was the case. Unaware of the other she would look at my sketch book and then for a second directly into my eyes, very calmly and patiently, as if she wanted to tell me “It’s okay. Take your time, I am not going to leave before you finished the drawing.” And that’s what she did. After about ten minutes I was done with the sketch, turned the book so she could see what I had done, she shortly glimsed at the drawing, back at me, then got up casually and climbed onto here tree/rope place. The meet was over. That day, the grace and dignity she displayed made it really clear to me first hand that those animals are really not that far from us. I will be very sad when there are only videos and tales left of them to show our children.
Next time I’ll tell the story of how a sexually frustrated african elefant threw faeces at me.