Is This The Elusive Cobra's Fang Mug? - Collecting Tiki

B bigbrotiki Tiki Socialite Tiki Island, above the Silverlake Joined: Mar 25, 2002 Posts: 11621	B bigbrotiki Posted posted on Wed, May 5, 2010 10:35 PM I usually try not to stray too much from a thread's subject matter, but to keep this board interesting, I sometimes take the opportunity to elaborate on a subject that might not come up otherwise, so I beg Babalu's forgiveness for this side track: I first saw and photographed this Hina Storyboard in 1993 during my first expedition to The Tikis: I was glad I could buy it off Danny Balsz the next year, I loved the naive/psychedelic style. Sort of an early Ken Ruzic: This must have been done in the late 60s...ahead of its time and the Tiki revival! I never found out who painted it. Here is the story sequence: Hina falls in love with the eel Maui finds out and catches him Maui gets stark-raving mad and kills the eel The eels head grows roots and sprouts the first coconut tree! Now there is a twist to the story: This is not a singular piece! A couple of years later, during a holiday in Waikiki, I stumbled on a neighborhood Tiki Bar...don't ask me where it was, somewhere downtown, and behind the bar hung a painting just like it! It was longer than mine, and I don't remember if it varied much, but it was the same story, by the same artist! Now I THINK this place was called the "South Seas" --but it was NOT the South Seas that you used to see coming in from the airport: http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=36241&forum=2 It was a small dive...BUT it was filled with some of the most exquisite tourist carvings: Marquesan war clubs and Tahitian Tikis and things, like I had only seen at the Hawaiian Hut --which was also a Spencecliff restaurant. Spencecliff had some direct line on quality carvings from Tahiti, you just don't see that kind of stuff anymore nowadays. In retrospect I am thinking that this place had taken over the name and decor from the above "South Seas" Restaurant after that location closed. Next time I went looking for it I could not find it, and never found anything else about it --or saw another version of that Hina painting again. Maybe Phil Roberts knows something about that "South Seas" reincarnation?

I usually try not to stray too much from a thread's subject matter, but to keep this board interesting, I sometimes take the opportunity to elaborate on a subject that might not come up otherwise, so I beg Babalu's forgiveness for this side track:

I first saw and photographed this Hina Storyboard in 1993 during my first expedition to The Tikis:

I was glad I could buy it off Danny Balsz the next year, I loved the naive/psychedelic style. Sort of an early Ken Ruzic:

This must have been done in the late 60s...ahead of its time and the Tiki revival!

I never found out who painted it.

Here is the story sequence:

Hina falls in love with the eel

Maui finds out and catches him

Maui gets stark-raving mad and kills the eel

The eels head grows roots and sprouts the first coconut tree!

Now there is a twist to the story: This is not a singular piece! A couple of years later, during a holiday in Waikiki, I stumbled on a neighborhood Tiki Bar...don't ask me where it was, somewhere downtown, and behind the bar hung a painting just like it! It was longer than mine, and I don't remember if it varied much, but it was the same story, by the same artist!

Now I THINK this place was called the "South Seas" --but it was NOT the South Seas that you used to see coming in from the airport:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=36241&forum=2

It was a small dive...BUT it was filled with some of the most exquisite tourist carvings: Marquesan war clubs and Tahitian Tikis and things, like I had only seen at the Hawaiian Hut --which was also a Spencecliff restaurant. Spencecliff had some direct line on quality carvings from Tahiti, you just don't see that kind of stuff anymore nowadays.

In retrospect I am thinking that this place had taken over the name and decor from the above "South Seas" Restaurant after that location closed. Next time I went looking for it I could not find it, and never found anything else about it --or saw another version of that Hina painting again. Maybe Phil Roberts knows something about that "South Seas" reincarnation?

Post #528284 by bigbrotiki on Wed, May 5, 2010 10:35 PM