in polar bear space and survival

workshop - Japanese woodblock printing

Pets are necessary in life

As part of my present studio practice I'm looking at animal conservation in zoos, and specfically focusing on two popular bears in global zoos since they began - the polar bear and the giant panda.

I was a junior member of the WWF when about 11yrs old, and come from a family who has mostly had pets, cats, rabbits, geese, fishes and a dog - at different times and fondly remembered.

I have a strong and amazingly natural bond with my boyfriend's cat Dollie (she came to him via a friend of mine who knew someone who couldn't keep Dollie when she was a wee 8week old kitten, so we went to see Dollie and fell in love with her from then on). She is 10months old now, as I write this, and sitting on my lap, and she is the inspiration for my renewed interest in the human relationship with animals, as pets.

I feature some photos below of Dollie, of which there are many, and these capture moments of her inquisitive, playful, loving, calm, cosy, and characteristically independant in herself and her close relationship with her owner and her love for giving me her undivided attention when I'm around - from her it is hard to tear ones' self away most times!

Anyway, this blog today is helping me relate my relationship with Dollie to my relationship with the zoo animals I am researching avidly, and to whom I shall be meeting (the polar bear) next week (and hopefully in sometime forthcoming to meet a giant panda). These, in my view, are now pets of the world.


age 9weeks - June 2010





age 4months - August 2010



age 6months old - October 2010







age 8months old - Dec 2010


age 10months old - February 2011

Walker - as a polar bear cub - Rhenen zoo, Holland

Mercedes & Walker the polar bears in Highland Wildlife Park

Mercedes the polar bear at Edinburgh zoo before she moved to the Highland Wildlife Park

polar bear candle

Memorial Candle from Jennifer Skupin on Vimeo.

Elspeth Lamb

Elspeth Lamb RSA - Nagasawa Cantrips from Andrew Goring on Vimeo.

Nagasawa is a rural area within Awaji Island, Japan, where Lamb has completed two residencies (2000, 2004) - one in Japanese 'mokuhan' woodblock printing, the other in traditional Japanese papermaking.

The title uses old Scots cleaver language: cantrips ranslates as 'magic' or 'spells'. Nagasawa Cantrips means therefore 'Nagasawa Magic' - and is a reflection of the artist's experiences in Japan.

The exhibition also includes eight framed lithographs (paper size 53 x 25 cm), all from the book, and Chimera ' an aluminium screen (five sections, each 260 x 36 cm) with digital prints on trugrain - many of the images used are again taken from Nagasawa Cantrips.

The dominant image of Nagasaw Cantrips is that of a beautiful, oval mirror - executed in chine colle. As in her 1999 series, Klecksographie, Lamb builds up many-layered lithographs in glorious colour and colour combinations where elements of text combine with visual image. Japanese text joins forces with Lewis Carroll in Matsu, for example, and elsewhere quotations appear from Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene, from John Donne and E E Cummings, as well as from a more immediate e-mail. Her wonderful Crow image from the Klecksographie series uses quotations from Ted Hughes and a drawing of the March Hare - the same drawing is used in Nagasawa Cantrips, and creates an immediate entry to the world of fairytale magic.

Nagasawa Cantrips (edn of 10) | 2004