Coconut Shells

[poliphilo]

I remember seeing a medieval goblet in a museum somewhere. The stem and mounts were of precious metal, and the bowl was half a coconut shell....

To it's original owner the shell was a great rarity- something a sailor had brought back from the mystic East. It had cost him a lot of money. "Have you ever seen"- he said to his friends-" ever even imagined- a nut this big?" None of them had- and they envied him.

The sailor, of course, had picked it up on a beach that was littered with the things.

Value is something we ascribe to objects, it's not intrinsic, it comes and goes. Oil, for instance, had a value a few weeks back that it doesn't any longer because nobody's running the machines that require it. Perhaps the value will return. This I suppose is what they call "market economics". It's actually a deeply philosophical idea.

We have a lot of coconut shells. They came to us as containers of fatty bird food. You hang them from branches or whatever and the birds peck away at the contents. Our local birds get through them at the average of one a day.

What can we do with them? We looked at DIY videos online- in which people- represented only by their hands- turn coconut shells into less costly versions of the museum exhibit- chalices, goblets, bowls. It's fascinating to watch a craftsperson at work. First the hair has to be removed, then the surface has to be smoothed down, painted or varnished, then ornament added...

I could be doing that. It's not the sort of work that demands enormous skill- only a certain deftness in the fingers- plus patience- which I don't have.

I'll go an easier route. Break them up with a hammer- as another site recommends- and use them as fertiliser.

Comments

[chochiyo_sama]

Many years ago, my sister and her husband raised ostriches--it was one of many "get rich quick" schemes that my brother-in-law attempted. Of course, as usual, he and his investors lost their asses in the scheme.

However, my oldest nephew who is an amazingly talented artist turned the eggs that did not hatch into all kinds of amazing things, carving intricate designs into the shells and turning them into lamps or just works of art. He was quite young then, still in school. I wanted one of those carved eggs so much! But he never got around to making one for his auntie. LOL.

Now the ostrich business is long gone and he is working for a tech head hunting company down in Texas. I don't think he has much time for his art any more. It's a pity. He is so talented.

[poliphilo]

Now might be the time for him to take up his art again.

[sovay]

I remember seeing a medieval goblet in a museum somewhere. The stem and mounts were of precious metal, and the bowl was half a coconut shell....

There's a nineteenth-century coconut-shell kiddush cup in the Jewish Museum of London that I adore. I hope to visit it in person someday.

[poliphilo]

Beautiful.

And very much the sort of thing I had in mind.

It surprises me it's so late- I'd have thought Londoners might have been less in awe of coconuts by 1803.

[sovay]

It surprises me it's so late- I'd have thought Londoners might have been less in awe of coconuts by 1803.

selkie and I thought the person for whom it was made must have had ties to South Asia, whether professional or familial or both; it looked to us more like a keepsake than a novelty.