Post #199195 by Lake Surfer on Sun, Nov 20, 2005 10:07 PM

Sorry... they have a web page, but my article isn't on there...

You guys are so great I'm going to type it in here for you though... thanks for your kind words!

Keep in mind that it was a half hour interview, so things were condensed a bit... I talked about a lot of stuff :wink:

[OFF THE CUFF] Great Lakes Tiki

Dave Hansen was just a Lake Michigan surfer who wanted a handcarved tiki idol to help him think warm thoughts during Milwaukee's cold winters.
But since he could only find them on the coasts, making it ourageously expensive to ship, he decided to try his hand with a mallet and a chisel.
That was five years ago, and Lake Tiki was born. To this date, the Shorewood artist has sold about 350 tikis to Polynesian culture enthusiasts across the country.

How did you learn the ancient art of tiki carving?

I dabbled around with Dremel tools before learning how to carve with chisels and a mallet. I did a lot of research. I read a lot of books about the original carvers
and the whole Hawaiian style and the classic gods.

Do you work in any other mediums?

My day job is in freelance graphic design. I don't consider tiki carving a job, per se. I consider myself an artist, and it's just a hobby of mine. Carving tikis led me to discover this whole realm of people interested in tiki, and I discovered they have these tiki conventions. I was so happy that people would come up and recognize it as a tiki, and not a totem pole.

There are people who don't know what tiki is?

A whole lot. When I first started going to art shows, people would ask me "Well, do you do bears? Do you do snowmen?" I went to the Cedarburg Strawberry Festival and the Port Washington Fish Days and didn't sell a single tiki. There wasn't any demand for it there, but when you find the right crowd, its great.

What's the whole tiki mystique?

Tiki is just a name for this whole pop culture thing. It's a form of escapism, and it started when people came back from World War II, and they had been stationed on these tropical islands like Hawaii. They kind of missed that in their homes in Kansas so they started building these little paradises in their basements. We're still trying to figure out why 20-somethings and 30-somethings are latching on to this, but we probably just remember our parents having tiki bars or the tiki bars that Milwaukee used to have. Milwaukee had quite a few back in the 60's. I'm just an artist who addds to the ambiance.

Where does the name Lake Tiki come from?

When I started tiki carving, I wanted them to be unique to this area of the country. Being a Lake Michigan surfer, I wanted that to flow into the carving, and there's the connection between surfing and Hawaii and tiki carving. All my work has a graphic of Lake Michigan, and that's sort of my signature.

Where can people see your work?

I did work for Donny at The Foundation, which had a tiki makeover last year, in Pewaukee at a restaurant called Kahuna's and I also did work for a tiki bar in Kenosha called The Rendezvous. I will also be showing my work in Chicago [at a restaurant] called the Tiki Terrace. I also do comissions in my studio and people can contact me at.... (phone number)

-Jeanette Hurt

[ Edited by: Lake Surfer 2005-11-20 22:08 ]