Post #689797 by Gene S Morgan on Sun, Aug 11, 2013 6:57 PM

Tigertail ... I just wanted to say I really enjoyed your post. You seem to think things through before you write. Even if I don't always agree with you, it does not bother me because your points are well made.

Your comments about Picasso were quite interesting. Lots of artist would not admit that they did not care for his art even if they didn't. He was a master after all. As you said everyone looks at art differently. Early this year I went to the Chicago Art Institute for a Picasso exhibit. They had 300 of his art works from all stages of his different styles. While I don't always like some of his later stuff too much either, I found my eyes opened up about where he came from and where he went. Below is an Ipad painting I made of the sculpture he designed for the Daley Center. It is not based on the actual work, but of one of the many preliminary sketches he produced. He made so many of those. I think it looks kind of tiki ........ Smile ........ I did always somewhat admire his intense imagination and creativity and drive ... He got up one morning and painted a picture and drop dead in the afternoon.

People don't seem to believe me when I say I know I am no artist. I did art and crafts for years. I sculpted in clay and sold it. Maybe that was all crap as well, but the profits bought me some nice musical instruments. I knew coming in that there would be some backlash to what I did and I was willing to take it and I have no bad feelings about your attitude to my images. You are a fine artist and your opinion is worthwhile to me. I will never be an artist at your level, but as hard as it is to believe, I am fine with that. I've done lots of stuff in my life that i was pretty good at. Ain't got time to be good at everything, I'm very old.

One of your comments that I see quite differently than you do is the fact that folks think I never studied tiki enough. I think the problem is just the opposite. I started studying tiki back when we called it the fifties. (here in the Midwest we never say mid century modern) I covered this before earlier in this thread, but in the seventies I sculpted tiki mask based on info from a book called "Oceanic Art". It was written in 1966 by an Italian during the time the first tiki movement was going on. None of the island art (real stuff from museums) looked much like most of the stuff that is called tiki today. That was not the only book I read. I am a collector. When I first came here a couple of years ago I again researched through Tiki Magazine and the artist here. I tried for awhile to fit in, but I just could not force myself to create endless angry looking warriors with big teeth. My imagination went elsewhere and now it's very stylized crappy not very tiki tikis for me. In the end you must realize I just design t-shirts and that is no big deal.

Thanks again for your comments ... it made me feel better after a couple of days of drama hijacked my thread again.

..... Gene