While the Oregon Zoo may be closed during the coronavirus pandemic, a local Portland artist is creating a drive-by “zoo” in his front yard.

Mike Bennett, former preschool teacher and now full-time local illustrator and cartoonist, is creating 26 wooden zoo animals – one for every letter of the alphabet – to prop up in the front yard of his Northeast Portland home. He’s calling the art installation “A to Zoo.”

Bennett has created an armadillo for A, a baboon for B, a cassowary (a type of bird) for C and a dugong (a type of aquatic mammal) for D. Bennett said his goal is to create and display a new animal every day until he gets through the alphabet.

The idea for the lawn zoo came about because a dozen creatures were recently stolen from a different front-lawn display, including a “Hang in There” possum. Discouraged, he took the rest of the display down. But he said he received multiple messages that spurred the zoo project.

“So many families reached out and said, ‘Your house was the highlight of our day. There’s nothing outside, what happened?’ ” Bennett said. “So I thought, ‘OK, I have some goals now.’ ”

So he got to work.

Bennett said he draws inspiration for the project from TV shows like “Planet Earth.” He sketches ideas out on his iPad, then projects a drawing onto a large piece of plywood. He then traces the image and cuts it out with a jigsaw. Bennett paints the creatures with vibrant paint, donated by recycled-paint company MetroPaint. It takes roughly three to four hours to complete one animal.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, Bennett created custom wood cutouts of people’s pets, characters for real-life Pokémon scavenger hunts, and various other installations throughout the city.

And since coronavirus, he’s donated his time and art to help raise money for various organizations in need.

He recently auctioned off one of his original cutouts on eBay. Out of 70 bids, the highest was for $12,000. Bennett will donate the money to Meals on Wheels America.

Bennett also partnered with Miller Paint and MetroPaint to put together DIY wood cutout kits available to purchase for $20. All 200 kits sold out the day they were put out for sale in local Miller Paint stores. Proceeds are going to Family Meal PDX, a Portland nonprofit that provides financial relief to food industry and agricultural workers and their families. Bennett said he’s working to find a way to mass-produce the kits to make more available soon.

Meet The Hopefuls:



Starting tomorrow in Portland, 200 Cutout Kits will be available at @MillerPaintCo stores around Portland!



Check out the video below for more details! pic.twitter.com/vduvTtrm8e — Mike Bennett! (@MikeBennettArt) April 21, 2020

He’s even brought on his recently out-of-work neighbor to help cut some of the wood.

Bennett studied art education at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania in the state he’s lived most of his life. He moved to Portland in 2016 and worked as a preschool teacher for two years at ChildRoots daycare and preschool before becoming a full-time artist.

“I’ve been doing this [wood cutout art] for just a little over a year, which is insane looking at this room, I know,” he said, gesturing to his garage workshop full of wooden characters.

The pivot to wooden cutout creatures all started because Bennett’s parents sent him his “Calvin and Hobbes” comic books from when he was a kid.

“In those books there were these snowmen Calvin would make to annoy his parents and I loved them so much,” he said.

So, during a Portland snowstorm last year he cut out and painted a wooden snow creature to put in his front yard. He borrowed his neighbor’s jigsaw and found some wood under his back porch. And it was a hit. "All my neighbors loved it. So I was like, all right, this is something. I’m going to keep doing it,” he said.

The Portland Trail Blazers recently commissioned him to make a wood cutout of Scottie Pippen, animated into a short video highlighting why Portland and Blazers fans are the best.

"The Portland fans are just special. The players really love it, they embrace it. They know that this is a great place to play" #RipCity Stories Presents: "@ScottiePippen Loves Portland"



Art by @mikebennettart pic.twitter.com/BaFwh5mBjb — Portland Trail Blazers (@trailblazers) April 22, 2020

Despite his shift from preschool teacher to full-time artist, Bennett says he still likes to incorporate his education background into his art.

Along with the animal cutouts, he posts videos to TikTok and other social media platforms to share facts about the animals he’s creating. His TikTok account has grown by about 400,000 followers – to 1.2 million – since starting the zoo project.

Bennett said, as an artist, he’s grateful to see his work appreciated in person.

“I think routine is really important right now. And knowing there’s something that gets updated every day is a really great thing. There’s a couple people that come by several times a day to say hi to the baboon and check in on the armadillo. I think that’s just the coolest.”

Where to see “A to Zoo”?

New animals are added daily around 11 a.m. on the front lawn of Bennett’s home. Like many of his prior art installations, this one will be kind of like a scavenger hunt. Clue: his home is in the Alberta neighborhood. The display is taken down nightly around 9 p.m.

The “zoo” is free, but Bennett suggests donating to One Tail at a Time, a nonprofit dog shelter.

– Teresa Mahoney @TeresaMahoney

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