My brief meeting with Jane Goodall
This week for chimp sketch of the week I decided that instead of drawing a Chimp I would do a drawing of a person who has done so much for chimps and humans alike.
I was lucky enough to see
Jane Goodall speak last week here on Long Island at Adelphi University.
I showed up two hours early in anticipation of her speech I was alone...
but it filled up quick.
This picture is taken from the bottom of the bleachers there is another couple of hundred people behind me.
When she first came on to the stage the college girls and biology students behind me giggled and said how cool she was, just a few of the millions of people that Jane has inspired over the last fifty years. She spent the first half of her speech talking about her experiences with the chimps and even greeted us with sounds similar to that of the chimps in Gombi, I was in pure heaven. After discussing the obvious similarities between chimps and humans she sited the obvious difference as well, our ability for abstract thought. She then posed a question: "if humans are in fact the most intelligent creators on the planet how come we are destroying the only home we have."
After the speech there was a book signing over one thousand people got there books signed I was among the first one hundred but by the time I got to Jane I had about thirty seconds to get a copy of her book signed, tell her that she was a huge inspiration in my life, give her a copy of my book
The Chimpanzee Manifesto and tell her it was an honor to hear her speak.
I wanted to tell her that I was an artist and that I fell in love with chimps watching her program as a kid. I wanted to tell her that I was working on a series of portraits to try to help a Chimp Sanctuary in Florida and was hoping for a nod of approval. I wanted to ask if I could use my art to assist
The Jane Goodall Institute and her in her global effort to help the chimps but there just was not enough time.
My meeting with Jane Goodall was brief but wonderful.
