Glory to The Pig

Acrylic paints on canvas, 24x30cm. Inspired by several photos.

I just bought a book about mini pigs as pets and I’m absolutely delighted. Even though I won’t be keeping one myself soon, I’m very interested in these beautiful, highly intelligent animals.

More and more people think that living with pigs in a household goes without saying. I’d love to see more people walking their pet pigs outside.

For an animal to conquer people’s hearts, it needs to be seen, after all. You can already buy calendars showing photos of piglets that make you find it hard to believe there could be anything cuter in this world.

Pigs aren’t city pets, however, since they need a big garden or enclosure, and you can’t train them with the same methods as people use to train dogs because pigs are naturally prey animals. Their character usually resembles cats more than dogs, but they’re very social and need a lot of family contact.


When you’ve seen a giant pig sleeping on colourful blankets, producing happy spit bubbles while being petted lovingly by its owner, you immediately start seeing these animals differently.

Meet Esther, who was declared a “wonder pig” by her Canadian owners:

www.estherthewonderpig.com/#!a…

On Hof Butenland, one of the most famous rescue farms in Germany, a few rescued pigs can enjoy life without worries, too, and grow old there:

www.stiftung-fuer-tierschutz.d…

But now I’ll have to move to the sad part which, unfortunately, I can’t spare you:

When you tell someone that – if you let them – domestic pigs behave almost exactly like wild boars, even trained farmers might laugh at you (just like it happened to Hilal Sezgin as described in her fantastic book “Artgerecht ist nur die Freiheit“ – “Only freedom is appropriate to the species”).

www.spiegel.de/kultur/literatu…

In fact, the pig we know as livestock and pet (Sus scrofa domestica) is simply the domesticated form of the wild boar, which it can still reproduce with. This fact stays unknown, though, as long as people only discuss the economic aspects or how these animals should be turned into food.

The prejudice of the dirty, stupid creature is completely unfounded. Just like it is to other species, bathing in mud is important to pigs for cooling down, since they can’t sweat, and for getting rid of parasites.

vebu.de/themen/tiere-a-ethik/t…

In Germany alone, 4500 are being killed… in what period of time? Per day? Ha! No, per hour! You may work out for yourself now how many they are each day, month and year.


To most people, an unnatural death is inextricably linked with this species. Even the cultural portrayal seems to add an invisible knife hovering above every individual. Not even famous pig characters like Miss Piggy are spared cheap jokes about ham and bacon!

However, most people who like to eat pork these days would hardly be able (or want) to raise, fatten, kill and prepare one of these animals with their own hands. They prefer to instruct others to do this unpleasant job, so they can buy the neatly packed parts comfortably in the supermarket… 


Everybody agrees that you mustn’t torment “Lassie”. But what about “Babe”?


Every day, I’m glad that, for many years now, I haven’t supported any of the numerous dreadful practices that are supposed to be “normal” in factory farming.

At this point, I also dare to claim that nobody has ever become seriously ill just by going without pork. On the contrary: Chances are that going without it spares you many health risks, e.g. parasites, pathogens, putrefaction toxins, dioxins, a higher risk of cardiovascular diseases and cancer etc.

www.naturheilpraxis-lehmweg.de…

www.vgt.ch/vn/0403/schweinefle…

If someone called me a pig or swine these days, I’d feel honoured. All that counts is what you associate with a word. As soon as you know that pigs are beautiful, fascinating animals, their name loses every hurtful effect.

My website: www.studio-sterna.com

Etsy shop: www.etsy.com/shop/StudioSterna

Studio Sterna at Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Studio-…