Post #109483 by Benzart on Sat, Aug 21, 2004 8:20 AM

Thanks Guys, the bulk of those were done the first time I was at the Trop which lasted 6 months. I arrived in May and left the end of October. I was so drained when I came Home I couldn't do anything for a month. They gave me total control of what to carve. The first 2 or 3 days they stood around watching to make sure I was cool and then left me alone to do what I wanted. The inspirations came from within and from looking at catalogues and magazines I could find. For the Longhouse, the Archetech had drawn tikis on the poles, but when he saw my work he quickly gave te the lattitude to "do my thing". The Trop's only request was that some of the poles looked authentic And to finish it in 30 days. There were 12 poles. I got them all done in 3 weeks including carving the rafters and a small bridge hand rails. the last week I spent carving the "Welcome to The Island Of Las Vegas" sign on the front entry way beam of the Longhouse. Then it was back to the Palm trunks. Then they let me find a "Good Carving wood" source and I found the truckload of Redwood logs from Crescent City Ca that they bought and had trucked in.
When the truck came with 4 big logs on it ,EVERYONE was Really blown away. 4 logs 10 to 13 ft by 4 and 5 feet blew Me away. They questioned my ability to carve those, but that only lasted for a day. You see the results. Some of that work was (as I have said before) Magical in that I don't remember doing much of it, like I was posessed by somwone who took over and did the work. It was a blur. Of course it was probably because I had been carving 6 and 7 das a week straight for 5 months or so and I was totally worn out kept going only by the creative energy that was going on. It was an experience I am Fortunate to have experienced.
When I got home it was all down hill. Pain wise my neck was so bad I couldnt do anything and both my hands were impossible. Over the next year I wound down and finally had to sell my tools to keep from using them, I couldn't stay away from them and I couldn't use them so I sold everything and quit. after about 4 months of doing nothing I found the job at this large jewelry mfg plant carving wax masters for small gift ware and chess board sets. I was able to do that about a year but finally had to quit for the pain.
I got a real job doing tech support for some large computer companies. That is the wrong thing to do with bad hands and a bad neck. Finally had neck surgery in'99 whisc half way fixed my neck. Last year I had first my right then my left thumb repaired. the left surgery was done in Oct last year and I found TC and started carving Small scale in January of this year. I had the itch and was looking for Mold making and casting materials for some ideas I had. That is how I found TC and the rest is all here in the pages of TC's forums.
There you know the Whole story, the quick version. I'm glad to have become a TC Family member.
More pix from the Trop here:
https://tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=7212&forum=7&4
Mor benzart stuff from Before the Tropicana here:
https://tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=7296&forum=7&7

[ Edited by: Benzart on 2004-08-21 09:07 ]