So many of you are liking the elephants in the current giveaway, I thought today that we could discuss the elephant in the room. Or, the many elephants …
Do you ever look around and suddenly notice a recurring theme? One day I noticed lots of big ears and stocky bodies around here. Not on the people, on four-legged creatures!
Here’s a bejeweled beauty on a frame from Z Gallerie. We’re shown in a happy vacation photo:
Peek inside this frame in our guest room, and you will see elephants on that map of Siam there:
On a Thai silk pillowcase from Jim Thompson in Bangkok. It sits on a chair in our bedroom. The chair is also upholstered in a heavy woven silk that we found in the Jim Thompson outlet in Bangkok:
I made this pillow cover with a wide elephant ribbon, below it a thin brown ribbon with beads, brown suede and gold silk chenille:
The big wood elephant is one of a pair of bookends, gifted by some business associates during a trip to Bangalore; the small bronze elephant is one my husband brought from India decades ago:
Erm, please excuse some dust on some things. I’d much rather blog than be a perfect housekeeper, wouldn’t you?!
Here, elephant drawer pulls from Anthropologie lay on a shelf in our guest room. With them are a tall raku vase from a ceramic show in Royal Oak, Michigan, a copper batik printing tjap found at Arhaus and a candleholder found at HomeGoods:
A stuffed elephant wrapped in Thai silk from Jim Thompson:
More elephants made of Jim Thompson silk:
I took a closer look at the textile covering our kitchen bar stools. And there, I found … little elephants:
Many of these elephants are from travel. And very appropriately, I have a few more elephants on vintage hotel stickers:
This is my most favorite elephant of all. It’s about three feet tall, ceramic with “dirt” texture on it, found at HomeGoods. It has the best profile:
This elephant will be traveling. It will be going to our apartment in Chennai some day, where it will live in the guest bedroom there.
Lot of elephants, both Indian and African, in my heart and home too. I also paint ellie icons every now and again. I’ve got a collection of ellie books too. If you haven’t got this one – you really, truly, have to get it – Sacred Elephant by Heathcote Williams – ah!
Thank you for the tip about Sacred Elephant. I will check that out. I have such mixed feelings about things like the elephant shows in Thailand — how they’re trained is heartbreaking but what happens to them without things like these shows? We watched a show in Thailand once and brought home a painting made by one of the elephants, and thought it was so cool at the time, until I looked into it more. I also met a baby temple elephant in Chennai — they said it had just come there after leaving its mom in Assam. I know it’s supposed to be revered, but I just felt so sad about it.