Post #557741 by bigbrotiki on Mon, Oct 4, 2010 2:33 PM

What a wonderful weekend! A great thank you to all the artists, the gallery folks, and all my friends who came! I was so honored that so many of you made the trek from L.A. to "pay their respects" to the Tiki bible. It was great to see you all (all the above and many more) after my long absence in Europe, I felt like coming home to family. I am really blessed to have such a community to return to, and I truly appreciate your attendance. It was all a big love fest for me. :)

The morning began magically with an early shower that brought down the temperature to a nice warm day:

At noon I went to M-Modern and checked on the hanging of the show, which was expertly executed by the staff:

After a pre-party at Rory's house (from which we can see some fine pics in Woohoo's post above) it was time:

The gallery was abuzz with just enough folks to fill the place but still allow the art to be seen:

Jay Nailor , Dre and the gallery staff did a great job

Which brings me to the first painting -by the artist known as Shag :) :

...a wonderful work which sold in no time

....perhaps because it was almost directly taken from life! :D

The bible study theme was continued in this cute fuzzy piece by Heather Watts:

Another red dot piece was THE Book of Tiki cover art work by Moritz R.:

...which I was happy to see go to a good, appreciative home:

Congrats Rory! I think this would make a good back bar piece! :wink:

There were too many wonderful works to show them all in this post, here are just a few:

Derek Yaniger's (Sold!) woodsy version....

...of the Mod Beachcomber on page 75 of the BOT:

The already posted works by Bosko:

...and by Dawn Frasier:

...and paintings as diverse as Dale Sizer's Hawaiian Eye homage:

...and handmade prints by Michael Uhlencott:

...of which Naomi was happy to get her favorite:

My contribution was this wall entitled "Look for the Book - in THESE products":

.....with which I traced back some of the images from the BOT that had entered the mainstream thru the example of Aloha shirts (one which was worn by the always clever Sabu, as seen in the post above mine :) )

While I was mostly busy signing away on copies of Tiki Modern...

...I managed to break away a little here and there and chat briefly with some of the friends, among which my favorite not-seen-for-an-eternity person was this classy lady:

!!!! ...need I say more!

Although this evening was full of happiness, there were some tears, and for a good reason. Naomi had showed me pre-show photos of Claudette Barjoud's amazing wall hanging, a one of a kind mystery girl sculpture:

This labor of love was destined to be a show stopper at the exhibit, so you can believe how my heart dropped when I came into the gallery on Saturday noon and found this:

When Jason and Claudette came in that evening, they had not heard the bad news, and it was quite a shock. Here is the artist next to her other wonderful work in the show, bravely smiling in the face of irreversible loss:

...and here she is days earlier, the proud creator of a fine piece of art:

All here on Tiki Central will mourn this loss, I am certain, but I am hoping that by posting these images I will give this lost art work SOME form of existence, and we look forward to other, grander works to come from the house of Fluff!

Except for this sad mishap, the show was a smash success for the gallery, with many pieces finding new owners, and I again want to thank all the talented artists, and all the Tikiphiles who attended for contributing! Long live the Book of Tiki! :)

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2010-10-04 15:43 ]