Post #387118 by Capt'n Skully on Sun, Jun 15, 2008 11:26 AM

On 2008-06-11 00:19, woofmutt wrote:

So you make Tiki Art, but what you make or the way you make it may not fall within a narrow definition of Tiki Art. Why do you as an artist feel your art qualifies as Tiki Art?

I'm going to say the initial 'intent' of the artist can carry over to the definition of the final piece.. How many times has an artist set out to create something that turns out nothing like the intended results? Yet, the frame of mind and artistic exploration during the creative process has now defined the piece as well. (Basically- you start out carving a tiki and it ends up looking African or Pacific Northwest or Mayan as opposed to Polynesian, yet you still can't help but call it a Tiki, because that was the original intent.) And that's just part of the innocence of artistic expression which in and of itself can never be defined as 'wrong' (even tho the created piece itself may be mis-classified in the end).

Beyond that- I think It's how the artists have 'found' tiki for themselves and their knowledge of the subject matter.. For some, what starts out as a whimsical journey becomes a lifestyle. Alot of the tikiphiles who create Modern Tiki arrived at tiki via different avenues- Through/reliving childhood memories, music, cocktails/lounge, mug collecting, vacations, surfing, etc.. So there's a lot of variance in the inspiration that hones in on a more narrowly defined view of tiki.