After years of working as a graphic designer, I am retired and am doing what I love to do, enjoying life in the Sacramento, CA area. My heart has always been with animals and I have always been a mom to my rescue dogs. I also go to the Capital to speak for bills involving animal rights when they come up.
I want so much to help animals that in years past, I have donated custom pet portraits to a number of animal rescue groups for their fundraisers and have also done several elephant watercolor paintings for the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS, San Andreas, CA). An orangutan painting bought 2 1/2 acres of orangutan habitat in Borneo for the Orangutan Foundation International. I also did a gorilla painting for a fundraiser for a friend who worked with the Batwa pygmies in Uganda.
I came up with my colorful zebra idea that has been ripped off and sold elsewhere (grrrr! people occasionally alert me to this!) and I also play around with photos I have taken by manipulating them in Photoshop.
My heart breaks with the horror stories of the grim existence elephants endure in circuses, and most zoos (don't get me started!), elephant rides, and phony elephant 'paintings' (no such thing - they have been beaten into learning this! please don't buy these!). PAWS has several eles rescued from zoos and from the Hawthorne ele rental hell that was shut down by the USDA and they give them the opportunity to just be elephants and roam together on hundreds of acres of open land for the rest of their lives.
Please, if you travel. DON'T EVER RIDE AN ELEPHANT or buy AN ELEPHANT PAINTING or GO ANYPLACE WHERE YOU INTERACT DIRECTLY WITH AN ELEPHANT! These animals are horrifically abused in order for them to be handled by their mahout. It may look benign to you but they have been severely punished physically in the past. You will never be witness to the abuse but you can see the bullhook (looks like a fireplace poker) that is used to control them. Google phajaan and get an idea of what they have been through. Thank you so much for listening.
My education: three years at Chouinard Art Institute where I studied design, drawing, and painting. I also took several illustration classes at the Academy of Art in San Francisco where I fell in love with watercolor.
Thank you for visiting my site! I hope you enjoy my work.
Galen Hazelhofer joined Pixels.com Licensing on April 1st, 2007.
