Post #589862 by Hakalugi on Wed, May 18, 2011 10:28 PM

One of my favorite paragraphs from the article:

Just as I was wrapping up, Walt said to me, “When people are waiting to have lunch there or whatever, they’re going to be outside. Rolly, I want you to design some preshow tikis for the outside.” I went to the library and got a book called Voices on the Wind that described all of these legends of the South Pacific. I read all the legends, and I picked out some—Rongo, Tangaroa-Ru, Pele, and some of the other gods that they believed in—and I did a series of pen-and-ink sketches of these different tiki gods, adding to them elements that would help them come alive, and in the preshow they would introduce themselves and do something physically while talking to you. I designed all of those, and then Walt asked me to have them sculpted. The top sculptor at WED said he was too busy and suggested that I sculpt them myself. I had never sculpted before, but the sculptor showed me how, and I ended up sculpting the tikis in the WED parking lot, where it was warm enough to make the plasticine clay malleable.

Since reading this I have tracked down my own copy of "Voices on the Wind: Polynesian Myths and Chants" by Katharine Luomala.