Are my Tikis the real thing? - Tiki Gallery

B bigbrotiki Tiki Socialite Tiki Island, above the Silverlake Joined: Mar 25, 2002 Posts: 11621	B bigbrotiki Posted posted on Sat, Aug 6, 2011 10:40 AM On 2011-08-06 08:35, danlovestikis wrote: ....to have him post on your thread is an honor. He answered your question spot on but now remember that tiki artists in general bend all the rules to create tikis. There are tiki designs from other planets to robots and monsters. You just get to decide what you enjoy doing and what it looks like. Well thank you Wendy, I wouldn't go that far as to call it an honor, I am merely trying to keep things on track and connected to what people liked about Tiki initially. In doing that, I cannot cover all the posts and questions out there, so it's a bit of a lucky number game. The mentioning of robots and monsters brings up a good point. The Tiki Revival of the late 90s and 2000s has become its own genre (as compared to the key period of American Tiki style of the 50s and 60s). Today's artist have expanded the borders of Tiki art in many creative ways. There are some of us though that feel that in recent times it has gotten too far away from its origins (Original Polynesian, and mid-century modern and cartoon art) and "Tiki art" has become a free-for-all grab bag of every pop culture cliche out there being thrown together with Tiki. While this is "fun" and entertaining, it can lead away too far from the subject to the degree that it becomes generic and redundant. It seems that, as the Tiki Revival has gone on for over ten year now, the need for new ideas lets artists reach farther and farther to find something "fresh". There is however such a horn-of-plenty of untapped design concepts and ideas in the vast genre of original Oceanic art that it's really not necessary to bastardize the original subject at hand to the degree of loosing its original context. This attitude of mine gets regularly interpreted as being "purist" and "traditionalist", and I repeat again, do not misconstrue it as a call to slavishly copy what has been there before. After all, what inspired me to write two books about American Tiki culture is its carefree handling and creative interpretation of an authentic art form. I am merely cautioning to study and know the parameters of that art form, and its interpretations.

On 2011-08-06 08:35, danlovestikis wrote:
....to have him post on your thread is an honor. He answered your question spot on but now remember that tiki artists in general bend all the rules to create tikis. There are tiki designs from other planets to robots and monsters. You just get to decide what you enjoy doing and what it looks like.

Well thank you Wendy, I wouldn't go that far as to call it an honor, I am merely trying to keep things on track and connected to what people liked about Tiki initially. In doing that, I cannot cover all the posts and questions out there, so it's a bit of a lucky number game.

The mentioning of robots and monsters brings up a good point. The Tiki Revival of the late 90s and 2000s has become its own genre (as compared to the key period of American Tiki style of the 50s and 60s). Today's artist have expanded the borders of Tiki art in many creative ways. There are some of us though that feel that in recent times it has gotten too far away from its origins (Original Polynesian, and mid-century modern and cartoon art) and "Tiki art" has become a free-for-all grab bag of every pop culture cliche out there being thrown together with Tiki.

While this is "fun" and entertaining, it can lead away too far from the subject to the degree that it becomes generic and redundant. It seems that, as the Tiki Revival has gone on for over ten year now, the need for new ideas lets artists reach farther and farther to find something "fresh". There is however such a horn-of-plenty of untapped design concepts and ideas in the vast genre of original Oceanic art that it's really not necessary to bastardize the original subject at hand to the degree of loosing its original context.

This attitude of mine gets regularly interpreted as being "purist" and "traditionalist", and I repeat again, do not misconstrue it as a call to slavishly copy what has been there before. After all, what inspired me to write two books about American Tiki culture is its carefree handling and creative interpretation of an authentic art form. I am merely cautioning to study and know the parameters of that art form, and its interpretations.

Post #601200 by bigbrotiki on Sat, Aug 6, 2011 10:40 AM