they're dead, you can't bring them back, but you can try to keep
their image from being overshadowed by those more interested in
pointing fingers and showing their limited knowledge of the ban
than devising a workable solution to the problem.
This being about ivory - Immeno1 (?). Those are true words - there’s
no arguing with the whole post, really. I used to work in a lot of
ivory, also tortoise shell. They are the most wonderful materials,
just a joy to work - I miss them, tortoise shell especially, it’s so
beautiful. However, I believe that the world at large has kicked the
ivory habit, and that’s a great thing. Probably even more so the
tortoise shell habit - even a greater thing. My take on it is simple:
Way back when, before there was plastic, if one wanted to make
something that was flexible, lightweight, non toxic, human friendly,
like a comb, say, one would use tortoise shell, which is about a close
to plastic as you’re going to find in nature. Pretty much the same
with ivory, but different uses - piano keys, billiard balls, chess
pieces (warm to the touch) - those were the main industrial (ie-large
scale) uses of ivory. Now that we have plastic, we just don’t need to
kill animals to put keys on pianos anymore, or anything else, for
that matter. I agree with the “snob” aspect - "But this is GENUINE
ivory, not {shudder} eeoooww! plastic! But then again, what is
it? It’s flexible, lightweight, non-toxic, human friendly - what’s
the big deal? Why kill a magnificent creature to make combs> that are
MORE easily made with plastic, and do the job actually even better?
Now, what the post is actually about, I believe, is artwork, which
means what to do with the 1/2 pound of old ivory in the bottom drawer,
and that’s not an issue really at all - just try to sell it!! How
many galleries here are going to show ivory pieces of any kind? The
big picture is the ivory trade, and that’s different. I agree with
almost everything Mr. Immeno1 says - that was a very rational post -
except for one thing. I don’t believe that poached ivory should be
warehoused, or sold, or metered out to the world or anything of the
kind. I think it should be burned. I am far from the bleeding-heart
anything - quite the opposite, mostly, but the less ivory (and other
such things) in circulation the better.