Post #580921 by bigbrotiki on Sat, Mar 19, 2011 1:38 PM

Tipsy, has there been any decision or progress made in regards to the Chef Shangri-La mural yet?

I was thinking that instead of hiring some artist outside of the Tiki community who does his own thing which might not be stylistically in tune with the Tiki aesthetic, they could have some skilled sign painter COPY an already existing design. This was done not infrequently, best still extant example is Damon's in Glendale, which used the Eugene Savage menu covers, AND a Reader's Digest cover, to very pleasing results:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=1099&forum=5&vpost=432142

I would be happy to lend my original painting "Virgin Sacrifice" by Louis Behan as a pattern, I have always felt it would make such a great mural:

(from his son's website)

It might be a bit too racy though.

I was further thinking that a return to the theme of the name of the restaurant would be appropriate: Shangri La
Shangri La was popular culture's predecessor to Bali Hai as the ideal of an exotic Paradise-on-Earth ....AND it has an Asian connotation, very appropriate for the owner family!:

But trying to find mural-appropriate depictions of Shangri La did not prove so easy. Ideally, a Tiki bar mural depicts some fantasy PLACE - but I was finding everything else:

NOT the Shangri La material I was looking for. Neither was this:

(...though it's a great song!)

NOT!:

The original book cover seems too plain and not exotic enough:

The only thing I could surf up was this low res image combination, of which the lower image comes close:

I believe it's a still from the movie. The mood of a remote paradise would be right, but it seems not tropical enough. So ultimately, a talented artist would have to make up HIS vision of Shangri La - a possibility which, as we found, will probably remain our own personal dream.

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2011-03-19 14:44 ]