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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;all_fakes, post: 110767, member: 55&quot;]Yes, hand-carved...but especially with the Indonesian hand-carved masks it may be a group effort; one of the kids does the rough carving, Dad does the fine details, Mom paints it.</p><p>And one of the things that irritates me is that the general style of the item, and sometimes the exact design, is taken from another culture with which the carver is unfamiliar, often based on photos provided by a middleman.</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp; It is especially irritating if a NW Coast master carver spends the time to come up with an original design, only to have it copied and mass-produced.&nbsp; I can name several artists who have been the victims of this.</p><p>&nbsp; &nbsp; This devalues their own work, and infringes their copyrights.&nbsp; And even when only the general style is being copied, it devalues the work of trained artists of the culture, who are also struggling to support their families, and have actually &quot;paid their dues&quot; through the years of apprenticeship needed to learn their art.</p><p>&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; And it invites fraud, in that the replicas or fakes are often sold or resold as genuine or antique Native American or Canadian First Nations work, and the buyers mistakenly pay $500 or $5000 for things that are worth $50, and for which the Indonesian carver was paid $5.</p><p>&nbsp; &nbsp; I have every sympathy for the third-world carvers who are seeking a living; but they are being victimized by importers and middlemen who are often illegally misrepresenting the carvings and victimizing the ultimate buyer, and who are not sharing the profits with those who actually do the work.</p><p>And sadly, there are many traditional Indonesian masks, from their own culture, which the makers could be carving.</p><p>&nbsp; &nbsp; I&#039;m just ranting, and not saying that Josh has done anything wrong.</p><p>&nbsp; &nbsp; But there is an international multi-million dollar business based on fraud and cultural theft, and that does bother me.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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