Piano Key Art

 

Wandering around the All-Collectors Show at the Blaisdell Galleria this past weekend, I stumbled upon quite an interesting booth.

It featured “piano key art,” something I’d never seen before.

I’ve seen ivory art before – carved elephant tusks from Asia, walrus and whale tooth scrimshaw created during the mid-19^th Century whaling era – but never anything made with old piano keys.

In days of yore (pre-1930s), piano keys were made of ivory. Hence the term, “tickling the ivories,” which meant a person was playing the piano. Since then, because ivory is expensive (and can be illegally harvested), piano keys are now made of plastic.

The artists, Roger Van Boxtel and Robin Ritchie, have been creating piano key art for seven years now, and currently divide their time between their homes on Maui, in Green Bay, and Venice.

No, I didn’t ask the price. And no, I didn’t buy any. Not this go-around anyway.