Post #708660 by Tiki Shark Art on Wed, Feb 19, 2014 3:18 AM

Wendy - thank you....I try to follow the things my mentors have told me. 1. thing is "Follow your Bliss." I never quite grasped the meaning of that for many years. Another mentor told me "Do what you Love, and Love what you do." That seemed to cook in my noodle. And I think I got that one, so with the support of some great folks, including a really kick -ass Art Agent / manager, I started painting on canvas Low-Brow-Tiki-Art.

Of course the twist is both of those is the unspoken "How do I pay the rent while I'm doing what I love?"

Very good question. One that stops many art careers. No easy answer, just more work, and a slow progression towards your "bliss" and a certain "Leap before you look" kinda thing some where in there... always is. It's risky. No way around that, at least that I have found yet.

Anyways, one way to make these wise teachings fit together, is LUCK. We are LUCKY to be experiencing a time when "Low-Brow" and "Tiki-Art" Art is becoming popular with a larger audience.

I recently hooked up with one of the largest sellers of souvenirs in Hawaii: "K C Hawaii". You ever been to the islands? been in an ABC Store? (they are almost on every corner) and looked at the resin tikis made over seas?... these are all made by KC Hawaii. I figured it was a good match that I team up with a company that has been making Tiki Souvenirs for generations. I could tell you it was very hard to crack the Hawaii Market and get my Art to a distributor who liked "Tiki" and understood it. How the Hawaii Tourist Trade has been under the control of 3 or 4 family owned businesses for a long, long time, and they are not about to let anyone get between them and that unending ever flowing tourist river of Benjimins pouring into Hawaii from every other part of the globe. No. I could even tell you the whole experience took years of slowly wearing them down till they would look at my work, and then test it, once or twice, How there were a few miss-starts and I got grossly underpaid by some other old family business who also has an Iron fist/ Kung-Fu Grip on the Hawaii tourist trade, but, how finally, with the help and the "say-so" of some local person of undetermined importance I finally got offered a contract to work with "KC Hawaii". YES! KC HAWAII - It's run in a very, V E R Y, unassuming urban part of Honolulu. Near the Port.
Looks only like an old, worn down, wear house on the outside.
Yet... inside... it is a virtual labyrinth of long rooms stacked with exotic goods, peopled by tough looking guys in all black.

It's managed by three imposing looking fellas in swanky business suits,

,,,known as "The Three Storms", and they report to their boss, and extremely old man in a wheel chair named David Lopan.

...but sometimes David Lopan transmogrifies from his Old Man's Crippled Body into a seven foot mystic Chinese Wizard.

It's at those times, you do not want to be late on your dead lines, or get your pan tone colors mixed up.
Or... I might have the whole thing confused with a really great old movie called "Big Trouble in Little China" made by John Carpenter back in 1986.

[ Edited by: tiki shark art 2014-02-20 00:55 ]