Post #624148 by KokoKele on Wed, Feb 8, 2012 2:19 PM

Seeing BigBroTiki's critique actually caused me to quit lurking and to actually sign up and post a reply!

It looks tiki to me. Here's why:

VanTiki is great at using wood grain effects to make his clay pieces look as though they were carved from a gnarly old log. To me wood grain is a very tiki element, as opposed to the examples of fantasy art supplied by BigBroTiki that look like they are made of metal and resin, respectively.

The piece has a drum theme. I associate drums with with island life, because they are used both for communication and festivities. I also see them in a lot of tiki bars.

The piece has an oceanic theme. What surrounds exotic tropical islands? The ocean! Imagine that an inhabitant of some exotic island spotted a creature walking out of the sea. He might think of it as a god of some sort and would want to carve a tiki of it. In the process he decided it should also be a drum. That's a clever islander! I really like the way this piece makes a Creature of the Black Lagoon gill statement while still looking like wood. Neat!

It has a nice grimace. I associate a grimacing visage with tikis, much more so than I associate those big dumb grins with giant teeth that all the woodcarvers seem to love so much.

It has a tiki-like nose and tiki-like eyes, highly stylized. It also has "carved" shapes that easily might have orginated somewhere in the South Pacific.

It looks like something an explorer or shipwrecked sailor might find on an infrequently visited island. Who were the people who carved it? What did they see that inspired the carving?

So I think this piece is not only tiki, but it's also really cool!