Folk art is dying, all across the globe. Impoverished artists with solid art-school background pretend to be “folk”, and push authentic craftsmen and artisans out of business. Luckily Bali remains a place where talent is still passed from father to son in a natural way, untarnished by academic instruction. It may not help with proportions, but it does help to focus on anatomy’s important bits, responsible for the continuation of artistic line. Procreation of creativity at its best.
Share this inspiring image with your friends free of any charge, but should you wish to acquire the original, remember that “fixed price” in Bali means you’re a moron if you don’t insist on a 50% discount.
Standing Ovation, Seated 
When I was in Tanzania every tourist oriented I was at had countless ebony carvings, supposedly done by the Makonde people who are famous for their prowess with carving knives. I even saw pamphlets talking about the carvers are the last of a dying tradition or some shit like that, but it was never explained why all these hand carved animals looked exactly the same wherever I went. Or why the Makonde would be carving images of the Maasai. The former live in southern Tanzania and Mozambique and the latter live in northern Tanzania and Kenya.
Here’s a blog about the Makonde (sadly inactive for years) http://makondeland.wordpress.com/
I know a tall lean Swede who posed as an albino Masai for tourists when he was in Africa. As for the identical carvings, there’s a fat chance they are all made at a sweatshop by workers who have never seen the Makonde people )
Lol, that’s especially amusing considering that Tanzania has the highest rate of albinism in the world, I saw at least seven or eight.
I think you have an airtight conclusion about where those carvings came from.
Reblogged this on LIFE and commented:
hmmmm this is something wonderful to see do this man lives hahahahahha