From Toilet Paper Wrapping

A man* walks into my office peddling some merchandise, and pulls out of his jean pocket a small shell cameo wrapped in toilet paper. The design was a little frog on a leaf and the workmanship was amazing. I knew I had never seen anything like it before anywhere, and I have done my fair share of traveling and visits to art galleries and museums. "Who made it?", I asked. The answer, a Wounaan Indian friend. It was not for sale. Since I wasn't interested in what he was selling, that meeting was over. The door was left open for the gentleman to return in case there was something else to offer. ( I always try to leave the door open if I can.)

Six months later. The man returns with some silver jewelry that he had cast from a mold based on the cameo I had seen previously. It was awful, too clumsy, too heavy, impossible to wear. We started talking about the frog cameo I had seen (now destroyed) and he told me the story of how he used to live on the Islands and exported shells to Italy for the cameo trade there. Knowing that the Wounaan Indians from the Darien Rainforest Region of Panama had tradition of carving in cocobolo wood and tagua nuts, he thought they should also be able to make cameos. So he set out to find a carver. It took several months of trial and error, lots of broken shells, before he could claim success. He showed me a couple of pictures of cameos carved by his Wounaan friend that had been set in gold and they were impressive. Gorgeous is a better word to use for them. That evening I showed the pictures at dinner to two guests who are professional art restorers, and they both placed an order on the spot. Voilá, a cameo business was born, just like that.

*name reserved by request