Tiled fountain · Santa Barbara Zoo · 2009
Animal Kingdom Fountain
A memorial fountain at the Santa Barbara Zoo, alive with the animals who live there
Shelby Bowen wanted a memorial to her husband, Jack. Michael O’Kelly gave her a fountain the whole zoo could share: an elephant whose trunk pours the water, penguins on the plinth, big cats on the wall — every one of them drawn from the Zoo’s own animals.
Name the animals
- Tap a white ring on the photograph to name the animal behind it.
- There are fourteen to find. Your tally is just below the photograph.
- Every animal on the wall came from the Zoo’s own collection.
Tap the rings (swipe sideways) · named 0 of 14The whole menagerie — well spotted.
- Dedicated
- 2009
- Medium
- Hand-glazed ceramic tile
- Form
- Fountain, pool and mural wall
- Dimensions
- Approx. 16 × 7 × 8 ft
- Commissioned by
- Shelby Bowen, in memory of Jack C. Bowen
- Fountain design
- Kavoian & Associates
- Location
- Santa Barbara Zoo, California
- Access
- With Zoo admission
Find it in the fountain
Who’s who on the wall
Name all fourteen on the photograph above, then look closer. Tap any picture to see it large.
The elephant is the fountain
Look where the water comes from: the elephant’s trunk. Two more streams pour from the flared lip of the plinth below.
Two big cats
A jaguar stretched along a branch, and a snow leopard just behind — spots against rosettes, each held in its own raised line.
The toucan
Its bill runs across four tiles. Next to it, a pale monkey watches from the branch.
Penguins in the spray
The plinth is wrapped in penguins and a black swan among reeds — the only animals that actually get wet.
At the water’s edge
A lioness, a tortoise, a crocodile along the waterline, a flamingo and a hornbill fill the right-hand panel.
The dog on the plaque
The dedication tiles name Jack and Shelby Bowen — and below them, a small curly-haired dog sends its love too.
The commission
A fountain for Jack
In November 2008 the design firm Kavoian & Associates brought Michael a commission: their client, Shelby Bowen — a major patron of the Santa Barbara Zoo — wanted a memorial for her late husband, Jack C. Bowen.
His first rendering was a stylised tree of life, hung with wild animals. Then came a meeting with the Zoo’s director, the client and the designers, and a change of direction: make it real. Not animals in general, but these animals — the ones who live here.
“If it were not for you and Peter there would be no fountain. It truly is a work of art.”
Shelby Bowen, in a note to Michael, 7 April 2010
How it was made
From the drawing board to the zoo
Michael researched the Zoo’s collection — the nature and forms of each animal — and produced a large colour rendering. That drawing is what carried the project through the Santa Barbara Historic Commission.
The brief
November 2008: a memorial for Jack C. Bowen, through the designers Kavoian & Associates.
A tree of life
The first rendering: a stylised tree, hung with wild animals.
The Zoo’s own animals
After meeting the Zoo’s director, a more realistic design, researched from the collection itself.
The colour rendering
A large colour drawing, approved and used to take the project through the Santa Barbara Historic Commission.
Drawn full size
Every animal drawn at the size of the finished wall, from reference photographs.
Glazed, fired and built
Hand-glazed, high-fired tile, set onto the fountain wall, plinth and pool.
In the client’s words
“So many people will enjoy it”
“Dear Michael, if it were not for you and Peter there would be no fountain. It truly is a work of art, and I am so pleased that so many people will enjoy it! Thank you!”
Fountains · murals · memorials
A fountain, a wall, a memorial of your own?
Gardens, courtyards, lobbies, zoos. Michael starts every commission the same way: a conversation about the place, the people it’s for and what it should say. Then a drawing.
See it
Visiting the fountain
Where exactly
Inside the Zoo — look for the turquoise pool with the red diamonds, and the giraffe looking over it.
Access
Included with Zoo admission, during Zoo opening hours.
More in the area
Michael’s Giving Back mural is at the Santa Barbara Foundation. In Ventura, half an hour south: the Ventura Historic Mural and Las Palmas.
Commissions
Commission a fountain or mural
Civic, commercial and private work throughout California — researched, drawn by hand at full size, and glazed to last in sun and water.
Related work
More public work
Giving Back
The life of philanthropist Clifford Sponsel, told in tile at the Santa Barbara Foundation.
Ventura Historic Mural
Fifty feet beside the San Buenaventura Mission, made for the city’s 150th anniversary.
Channel Islands Fountain
Pelican, sea turtle, otters and dolphins in an arched wall fountain, a mile from the coast.