Aloha, I did a carving class down at the Carbrillo Marine Aquarium not to long ago and the class made it into the paper. Not a bad article either.
Ever since I started there, my boss was bugging me to do a tiki carving class, so we set one up. It was a flat fee class, that included chisels, a mallet, and eye protection(to keep) and your very own 2ft piece of mexican fan palm to carve a tiki with. I thought I would have a few co-workers show up for the class and that was it. Turns out, we didn't have enough tools so I had to turn people away! 12 people pre registered and I had to turn away 5 more because there was not enough tools or palm wood. So...we decided to schedule another one for October. Keep your eyes peeled in the "tiki events" section if you're interested in attending. I'll give ya'll fair warning, but I'm also happy doing this stuff for some free rum anytime (if I can get there...)
The day went great, and we carved out at the salt marsh observed by diving terns, blue herons and egrets.
Here's how it appeared in the paper:
Pg 1:
pg 2:
sorry - shutterfly cropped some of the text and pictures kinda weird.
Here's the full story:
Carving a niche
Aquarium class teaches the ancient art of tiki
By Paul Clinton - MORE SAN PEDRO
By attending a tiki-carving workshop at Cabrillo Beach,
Ben Dickow was able to indulge his love of a kitschy art form popularized by soldiers returning from the South Pacific after World War II.
Dickow, who attended the workshop on a Saturday in May, described his technique for carving his own tiki-head deity.
Dickow used a pre-cut Mexican fan palm stump from the marsh near Cabrillo Beach. He brought it back to a platform near the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, where he stripped off the fronds and sand down the layer of hairy fibers from the stump’s skin. Using a piece of chalk, Dickow said he drew white outlines for eyes, a mouth and tongue.
He then used chisels and a mallet to refine his tiki’s features. Dickow was carving a facsimile of the tiki, the Polynesian fertility god with a pop-culture appeal that has ebbed and flowed since the late 1940s.
“It’s got a big mouth with a tongue hanging out,” Dickow said. “I was trying to be funny.” Dickow, a 30-year-old who drove from Venice with his girl-friend, joined a group who attended the aquarium’s tiki-carving workshop.
Three and a half hours after he started, Dickow continued to carve and chip away at the palm, which began to reveal the face Dickow wanted to show.
Fifteen slides about the history of Tiki gave him a few ideas for his Polynesian “ku,” the god of strength usually represented by the knees-folded tiki symbol.
Dickow’s tongue-in-cheek carving offered just one flavor of the tiki statuettes created at the workshop.
Aquarium Educator Jim De Pompei plans to oversee another tiki-carving workshop in October.
“That was my goal, to showcase the basics on how to do it,” De Pompei said. “Every carver has his own style.”
George McAllister took his piece of fibrous, soft wood and carved a tiki with teardrop eyes, medium-sized mouth with a grin and teeth. The 52-year-old McAllister said he would set his 2-foot tall tiki behind his house.
“They symbolize Polynesian gods, but they can be anything,” McAllister said. “He’s going to be the protector of the back yard.”
Autumn Miller, a fifth-grader at Point Fermin Elementary School, viewed her tiki as a protector.
“It’s a good spirit,” she said. “It’s supposed to eat the bad spirits.”
and a few pictures the wife took:
I didn't have enough decent mexican fan palm for everybody, so I cut the ones I did have in half and that proved to work well for the masks. That's me on the right.
talking carvin' with one of the students. That's his first tiki ever down there.
I was very impressed with the quality of tikis that came out in the short 3 hours that we carved together. I knew that noone would finish, but I was shocked at how far along many of the students got and how good they looked for their first tiki (or carving for that matter). Plus...it was tons of fun and my job PAID me to do this. And they want to do it again!
I encouraged them to come visit TC (a few said they are lurkers...so feel free to post if you're reading this!)
Thanks for reading!
