Salem (Ohio) News (1965-12-07)
By LYLE W. PRICE SAUSALITO, Calif. (AP)
—Sculpter Barney West carves wooden Polynesian Tikis in his front yard here and he guarantees them for a century.
West and five helpers use power tools on huge redwood logs from nearby northern California forests. He'll take orders up to 100 feet tall and 20 ft wide.
The gaunt-faced Tikis represent Polynesian gods and ancestors, West says.
From New York to Hawaii. His big customers are Trader Vic restaurants, shopping centers and resorts. West also carves redwood totems. Buddhas and other religious figures, ship figureheads and an occasional wooden Indian.
West estimates that his open-air factory has produced several thousand redwood artifacts in his 10 years of professional carving.
Products range from small garden and patio Buddhas to a 41-foot totem at a supermarket on Lake Tahoe. A current month-long project Is a 20-foot-high likeness of St. Francis of Assisi for the Catholic church of the same name in San Fran-cisco.
"I guarantee all products for 100 years," the sculptor said as he tugged his weathered seaman's cap down over his matted hair.
He says he can make the written offer because "next to stone, redwood is the most durable material." West's business is an attraction even for Sausalito, a picturesque San Francisco suburb whose chief industry is tourism. He counted 5.000 visitors to his sawdust-strewn "Tiki Junction" last summer and hones soon to be included on sight-seeing tours.
West says he was taught by carving masters when he was shipwrecked in the merchant marine for six months in 1943 in the Marquesas Islands 800 miles northeast of Tahiti. "I thank that what they did was so wonderful and impressive." he said of the native art. West brought back many Tiki designs with him and since has returned by plane to insure that his models are authentic.
Here's Barney West hard at work. California did seem to have the market cornered on Tiki then as now. sigh
(from the News Tribune, Pierce, Fla., 17 February 1964)
MELANESIAN MARK -
Barney West, former merchant mariner, paints a reproduction
of Tiki, a Melaneisean God, carved out of redwood at his
Sausalito, Calif., home.
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Barney West Says He'll Get New Saw
Sausalito sculptor Barney West said today he is selling his gasoline-driven chain saw and will buy an electric saw, following complaints by 40 nearby residents that his saws are "too nosy," West carves tikis on Mono Street near Bridgeway. The saw subject is to come before the Sausalito City Council Tuesday.
(from the San Rafael Daily Independent Journal (1964-11-13))
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[ Edited by pappythesailor on 2024-07-26 09:54:56 ]
