May 27—CALEDONIA — Two years ago, Sharon Dickerson and her husband, David, went to Caledonia Days, a festival just outside Columbus featuring vintage cars, arts and crafts, food and music.
“David saw this guy in a full lion’s suit handing out brochures,” Dickerson said. “They had a booth, and they were selling paintings done by animals. They were amazing.”
The animal artists were lions and tigers from nearby Cedarhill Animal Sanctuary, a nonprofit organization that rescues abandoned and neglected exotic and domestic animals.
An artist herself, Dickerson wanted to be present during one of the big cats’ painting sessions — known as enrichment time. She contacted the sanctuary’s executive director, who was gracious enough to grant her wish.
“It was awesome,” said Dickerson, who has lost most of her sight. “They were rolling around on big canvases with their legs in the air. It was obvious they were having fun, and that’s the main purpose.”
The Dickersons decided to fund a year of painting enrichment supplies for the sanctuary. They purchased non-toxic tempera paints in every color they could find, and large canvases for the big cats to create masterpieces.
“Being an artist, I could surmise that if the animals had more colors to use, their works would be more exciting,” Dickerson said.
She also began contacting area art galleries and museums to arrange exhibits of the animals’ artwork.
On June 2, the Union County Heritage Museum in New Albany will host “Out of the Wild,” an exhibit featuring more than 80 works by the big cats at Cedarhill. The opening reception is from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., and the exhibit will be up through July 21.
“Sharon reached out to me, and I thought the idea sounded unique and creative,” said Jill Smith, the museum’s director. “I thought the community would enjoy it. I’m glad it will be here during the summer so kids can come experience it.”
All the canvas paintings in the exhibit, ranging in price from $300 to $2,500, as well original prints, will be for sale.
“The largest painting is 4-by-4-feet, while the smallest is 12-by-12 inches,” Dickerson said. “They come in all sizes, and all of them are framed, except one. That one is gallery-wrapped canvas because the cat artist shredded some of the canvas and the wood, and we wanted to show that.”
Most of the proceeds from the sale of artwork at the exhibit will go back to Cedarhill Animal Sanctuary, while 10% will be donated to the Union County Humane Society, and a small amount will go to the museum for its Children’s Art Program.
“Any money we make will go toward the big cats at the sanctuary,” Dickerson said. “Paints, supplies, toys, improvements to their living quarters, more enrichment programs — whatever they need.”
Dickerson stressed that the exhibit is a multimedia experience. There’s an audio version describing the exhibit that people can access with their phones; a film of the lions painting during one of their enrichment sessions; and a soundtrack featuring music from Asia, Africa and India, the native countries of the lion, tiger and bobcat artists; and career storyboards, so kids can learn about requirements for different jobs that involve helping animals.
“You won’t just walk in and look at paintings,” Dickerson said. “You’ll learn about why exotics should be in the wild, and not out of the wild.”
In the beginning
Cedarhill Animal Sanctuary in Caledonia was started in 1990 by the late Kay McElroy, said Nancy Gschwendtner, the executive director.
“Kay liked to read the classifieds in the newspaper, and she saw an ad for a cougar for sale,” Gschwendtner said. “When she went and saw the cougar, it was in a small pen, sick and malnourished. Kay’s background was in horses, not big cats. She knew if she took it, she couldn’t keep it.”
McElroy had someone build a chainlink enclosure for the bobcat, named Zack, near her home on her 25-acre property and started searching for a zoo or a learning center who would take the cat.
“She found nothing,” Gschwendtner said. “That’s when Cedarhill was born. Kay saw a need out there for a sanctuary for abused, disabled, neglected and unwanted animals, both exotic and domestic. We have saved thousands of animals over the years.”
Cedarhill currently houses about 200 animals, including three lions, three tigers, eight horses, five bobcats, one donkey, one pig, two African-grey parrots, 20 dogs and 160 domestic cats.
“We get the exotics from other sanctuaries, the black market or when drug dealers get tired of them,” Gschwendtner said. “The lions — one male and two females and they’re siblings — all came from a sanctuary in California. They didn’t have money to keep rebuilding after repeated floods and fires in that area.”
Gschwendtner said Cedarhill gets a lot of older animals and animals who have been through the worst.
“This is like their retirement home,” said Armin Gschwendtner, who cares for the exotics and the grounds at the sanctuary. “Once an animal comes in here, this is their forever home. We give them the best life we can for whatever time they have left.”
The sanctuary, which has 14 employees, gets no funding or grants from the government and is supported solely through private donations. It is not open to the public.
“These animals have already had enough exploitation in their lives,” Armin Gschwendtner said.
The paintings
Nancy Gschwendtner said lots of other sanctuaries use painting as an enrichment program, so she thought they’d try the same thing at Cedarhill.
While the big cats are in their outdoor enclosures, employees and Dickerson, who is on Cedarhill’s board of directors, tape canvases to the concrete floors of their feeding areas. Then they squirt the canvases with different colors of paint and add scents the cats find attractive — perfume, essential oils, deer urine.
“Then they let the cats in, and they just go to town,” Dickerson said. “Paint is flying everywhere.”
Nancy Gschwendtner said sometimes the cats paint every week, and sometimes it’s every other week.
“It depends on their mood and what the weather is like,” she said.
When the animals are finished painting, the staff puts them back in their outdoor enclosures and retrieves the artwork, which is covered in swirls, paw prints, animal fur and often, teeth marks.
“The cats really enjoy the painting sessions,” Dickerson said. “You can tell they get excited when they see us coming toward their enclosures with canvases and paint.”