By Charlie Morey

"Roses are red, violets are blue," recited the blue-eyed little girl with curly blonde hair as a mischievous grin crept across her lips. "A face like yours..." (she broke into a fit of giggles as she delivered the punch line), "belongs in a ZOO!"

It's been decades since my daughter got me with that one. She's comfortably middle-aged now, and I'm well on the way to becoming a certifiable senior citizen.

Today her "a face like yours" line has become the working title for my next fine art photography exhibit, this one to be held at the NoHo Gallery LA on August 2-29, 2008 as their featured artist in the group show "Paws, Claws, Applause" an exhibit all about animals by painters, sculptors and photographers.

I became a Los Angeles Zoo member years ago and have driven the 15 minutes between my Studio City home and Griffith Park many times armed with a Nikon digital camera and a super-sized Sigma 50-500mm lens in an ongoing project to capture wild animal images. I'd love to do that in the animals' original habitat, but since I don't have trips to Africa, South America or Asia in my budget this year (or any other year, unfortunately), I've done my best to find comparable images here in our urban environment.

Everyone knows the city-owned Los Angeles Zoo provides an incomparable educational resource for students, but have you considered its value to the creative souls of the NoHo Arts District? We have our share of legitimate starving artists, and even those who have found financial success in art (or in their "real" job) don't necessarily have any globe-trotting wild-animal-image hunts in their future plans. But with a collection of mammals, reptiles, fowl and flora (the zoo is also a certified botanical garden) that numbers in the hundreds, the subject options are clearly overwhelming. Zoo membership for an individual annual fee provides 364-day access to an incredible selection of art/photography models. Even we starving artists can swing $45 a year!

Supporting the zoo, GLAZA (the Great Los Angeles Zoo Association) is a fundraising organization that offers a host of opportunities for us to support the work done by the administration, animal handlers, veterinarians and other members who work at the zoo every day, as described in its mission statement:

The Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association is a nonprofit corporation created to support the Los Angeles Zoo in its mission to nurture wildlife and enrich the human experience. GLAZA's primary responsibility is to seek and provide financial support for the Zoo’s programs and capital projects. GLAZA performs other support functions as requested by the Zoo Director.

GLAZA representatives will be present at the Saturday, August 16, artists' reception offering information about the L.A. Zoo and an opportunity to sign up for membership. The reception is free and runs from 6:30 to 10:30 p.m.