~ Wednesday, May 20, 1992 - North Shore News

ng the ivories

HEN CANADIAN sculptor Richard Marcus com-
mitted the sin of using elephant ivory as his me-
dium, he didn’t ge to hell. Instead, an angel of

mercy appeared to him with a

politically correct solution:

ivory from the tusks of woolly mammaths and mastodons.

And the North Vancouver artist
says he’s worked with a clean
conscience ever since,

“felt bad about the peril ele-
phants were in, and all the excuses
! heard for using elephant ivory
were rather lame. So | walked
away from it. I've struck people's
emotions with this material,’’ says
Marcus, ‘‘I’'m saying there’s
definitely no need for elephant
ivory.”

He’s making a healthy living,
too. Marcus and wife, Rose, have
carved out an international
business from his art and jewelry,
with sales trumpeting across
Canada, the U.S., Japan and
Australia.

Much of this husband-and-wife
team’s success is due to their
adeptness at gaining and maintain-
ing media attention. The glossy
press package for Mammoth
Enterprises comes complete with a
color brochure and a list of
“commonly asked questions.”

Marcus has given interviews
with dozens of publications, in-
cluding Germany's Stern Maga-
Zine, and, as the package points
out, his name is listed in the Ca-
nadian Who’s Who.

Evelyn Jacob
SPOTLIGHT FEATURE

bits and pieces that have been
weathered by time and the cle-
ments.

(He adds that he ts regularly in
touch with Ontario’s Museum of
Civilization and has donated
pieces of unusual-looking tusk to
the American Geological Associa-
tion in California.)

Minerals seep into the substance
and add dark brown, black and
manganese-stained blue to the
original creamy white.

As far as Marcus is concerned,
elephant ivory pales beside its rich
ice Age cousin.

“Elephant ivory is boring com-
pared to this. There’s a certain
mysticism about mammoth ivory.

NEWS ohoto Mike Wakefield

SCULPTOR RICHARD Marcus thinks elephant ivory pales beside
the richness of !ce Age mammoth tusks: minerals seep into the
substance and add dark brown, black and manganese-stained

blue to the original creamy white.

“When we first started,”” says
Rose Marcus, “people would ask
what kind of woad this was.
We've come a long way since
then. Richard has been on TV
twice in Germany, and we're
proud to say we have art in col-
lections on every continent. We're
educating the public.”

Prehistoric ivary is uncovered
during gold-mining excavations in
the Yukon, northern 8.C., Alaska
and Siberia.

The 30,000- to 50,000-year-old
tusks, which resemble petrified
wood, have been interred in the
ground and preserved by per-
mafrost.

While archeologists and
museums are interested in fully in-
tact tusks, Marcus buys shattered

And | personally like the colora-
tions.”

In his Vancouver workshop,
thousands of shards of eons-old
tusks lie in wait on dusty table tops
for Marcus to combine them with
semi-precious stones — bits of
Afgani lapis lazuli, malachite from
Zaire, amber, turquoise — and
even hardwoad.

The Venezuelan-born designer
has worked with various materials,
but in the last 10 years mammoth
ivory has become his primary me-
dium, He had to overceme some
obstacles before he could become
completely comfortable working
with the material, however.

In the beginning, he felt intimi-
dated carving up fragments of
30,000-year-old tusk. There were

also certain physical challenges.

“Oriental carvers complain the
material is too soft. It's more
unstable than elephant ivory
because it’s been buried in the
ground and frozen, so it tends to
crack and pop. And boy, does it
stink. Once it was so bad | nearly
threw up into my mask.”

But after a time of “pushing
and pulling,”* he and the material,
he says, have become like
“buddies.”*

Mammoth ivory is a finite
substance, but Marcus, who goes
through about 400 pounds of ivory
a year, insists his consumption rate
doesn’t put a dent in what's avail-
able world-wide.

In the meantime, his work can
be found in collections all over the
world, in the Medical Heritage
Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma and
the home of Bagama Khan, the
Aga Khan's mother.

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