todayilearned

According to Mothersbaugh, he stumbled upon the colossal ruby when he was hanging out with a gemologist friend who “had this story about a gem mine where somebody was just in a hurry to get rid of a bunch of stuff, and he happened to be at the right place at the right time and he bought it for a ridiculously low price.” The two discussed how the types of people who usually buy these absurdly large gems have often acquired their money by rather sinister means—they are members of drug cartels, Russian oil executives, mobsters. Mothersbaugh decided that he’d like to carve the ruby. Specifically, he’d like to carve the ruby into the shape of a turd… “So whoever owns the world’s largest ruby, [has] to buy a turd to get it.” To disguise the turd as a scoop of ice cream, Mothersbaugh placed the ruby into a beautiful, highly polished bronze cone. Only the title alludes to the less-than-savory subject Mothersbaugh chose to depict (“kus-TURD”).