This is “Thai”, a large withy elephant made by one of our students. She made it over the course of 6 weeks, first soaking the withies for 5 days to make them pliable for weaving.
She had never used withies in this way before, and had no template. She created the elephant by eye, looking at photos and studying them, allowing the sculpture to evolve spontaneously, and pouring her whole heart and soul into the project.
Thai was unveiled on our Summer Lunch last year, when we were raising funds for elephants in Thailand, who are tortured so that they can be cruelly used for tourism and logging.
Thai is now installed in the garden at no. 33, giving delight to us all and reminding us of the plight of the Asian elephant in captivity.
Someone kindly donated £200 so that we could keep him here forever instead of being advertised, auctioned and sold, and this donation went straight to our charity, Elephant Nature Park in Thailand.
