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As told by Max
Max is a young elephant with big ears, bigger dreams and no talent for painting. Yet.
When a photograph of his Aunt Pim taking a bath is shown at the Louvre in Paris, a young bull elephant named Max decides that he, too, will be a world-famous artist. There is only one problem: he cannot hold a brush, and the best painter in the park, Golden Bell, has never noticed him.
Told by Max himself, this warm and very funny story follows the herd through mud baths, dust showers, painting lessons and an opening night in the gallery shop.
Sixteen photographs from the elephant camps of northern Thailand, including the bathing elephant whose picture really did go to the Louvre in 2015.
Every photograph in this book is real, taken by Robert Goldston, Sr. on his travels. The stories are fiction, written as a gift to the photographs; the italic line under each story title tells you what the photograph actually shows.
Prologue
My name is Max. I am a young bull elephant. I live in the green hills outside Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, and I have opinions about everything. Ask anyone. Ask the chicken.
This is the story of how I became an artist. It starts with my Aunt Pim, who did nothing more than take a bath. A photographer with a very large camera happened to be standing on the riverbank that day. He took her picture, said thank you, and went home.
Years later the news came back to us the way news always does, from keeper to keeper and trunk to trunk. Aunt Pim's picture had gone to Paris. On July 13, 2015, it was shown at an award reception at the Louvre, one of the most famous museums in the world. Aunt Pim had never been farther than the banana truck.
Nobody at the park could talk about anything else. I could not sleep. If a picture of an elephant could go to Paris, then a picture by an elephant could go there too. And if I were the one who painted it, Golden Bell would finally notice me.
Golden Bell is the best painter in the park. I am not. That is the whole problem. Here is how I solved it.
Three spreads from the book: the photograph on one page, its story on the other.
No. 1No. 1
An elephant bathing in a river and spraying a fountain of water over its head with its trunk.
This is the picture. This is the one that went to Paris. Look at that fountain. Aunt Pim fills her trunk, lifts it high and lets go, and the water comes down over her head in a perfect silver curl. She has done it every afternoon of her life. She never once thought it was special.
Here is my version of what happened. A judge from Paris was passing by in a fancy hat. He saw the fountain, burst into tears, and gave Aunt Pim the Blissful Supreme Happiness Award on the spot. She was so happy she dropped the trophy, and it is still at the bottom of the river.
Here is everybody else's version. A man took a photograph, and some years later it was shown in Paris. There was no judge and no fancy hat. There was certainly no trophy.
I have been diving for that trophy ever since. So far I have found two sandals, a mango and a very surprised fish.
… the story continues in the book.
No. 7No. 7
An elephant holding a paintbrush in its trunk and painting tall green stems on an easel.
My cousin Boon was the first in our family to pick up a brush. Here he is at work. Look at those stems, long and green and bending a little, the way grass bends in the wind off the river. The critics call it bold. His mother calls it “on the wall again,” because before Boon had an easel he had the side of the feed barn.
I asked Boon to teach me everything.
“First,” he said, “you hold the brush in the tip of your trunk. Not too hard and not too soft.” I held it too hard. It snapped.
“Second,” he said, handing me another, “you dip it in the paint.” I dipped it in the water bucket and then drank the bucket. In my defense, it was hot.
Boon was very patient. By the end of the afternoon I could hold a brush, dip it and make a mark on the paper. It was not a flower. It was a sort of brown smudge. Boon looked at it and said, “Well, it's a start.” Then he said, “Golden Bell started with smudges too.”
… the story continues in the book.
No. 11No. 11
A young elephant painting with a brush at a wooden easel, with paint pots on the shelf below.
And here she is. Golden Bell.
She does not throw paint like dust or snap her brushes. She holds the brush lightly in the tip of her trunk, the way Boon said, and she waits. Then she makes one stroke, blue and green, like a reed leaning over the water. Then she waits again. Golden Bell is the only elephant I know who can wait.
I stood behind the fence and watched her for an hour. I forgot to eat. That has never happened before or since.
When she finished she turned around and looked straight at me.
“You're the one who painted the keepers' shed,” she said.
I had a hundred clever answers ready. I had practiced them all week. What came out was, “I am, um. I am. My name is Tong.”
She tilted her head. “I thought Tong was the one who does the hat trick properly.”
“He is,” I said. “I am the other one.”
… the story continues in the book.
39 pages, 16 photographs, one storyteller. Digital PDF for $2.95.
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As told by the Needle
A brass needle that never points north, and the great machines it leads to.
