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Celebrating classic and modern Polynesian Pop

Tiki Central / Collecting Tiki / What was the first Tiki mug?

Post #730260 by bigbrotiki on Sat, Oct 25, 2014 12:20 AM

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Haha, very clever :)

Let's clarify: Nobody here said that the Wharetena coffee mug cannot be called a Tiki mug! What tikilongbeach meant with her post (and what is easy to miss-read as a blank statement) was:

On 2014-10-24 12:07, tikilongbeach wrote:
Crown Lynn and the other New Zealand pottery companies did create some really cool stuff, but they're not tiki mugs. I'd be happy to own any of their Wharetana Ware.

…merely that that company made many OTHER Tiki shaped and Tiki-adorned items that are NOT mugs, but ashtrays, bowls, bookends, etc. And, yes, they are indeed beautiful, and I bet rare and expensive (I once tried for those Moko bookends, they went sky-high)

All we are saying here is that that mug is not a Tiki bar cocktail mug, and as that not really relevant to the lineage and evolution of American Tiki Pop. And you did read the clarification by Tattoo that that is the original question that he started this thread for, right?

You might think this is an "ethnocentric" stance, but as I mentioned earlier, it is important to stick to the definitions of what American Tiki style is, because otherwise the confusion that caused it to be not recognized in the first place will continue:

American Tiki style was not acknowledged as its own genre in the mid-50s to mid-60s because folks thought of it as "being from Hawaii", or "from the islands", and called it "Polynesian style". With my work, I want to make clear that, though it was INSPIRED by Polynesia, it became its own art form on the American mainland, one that went far beyond in stylization and spread than what had happened on the islands, and that American craftsmen and designers can be proud of, instead of hiding in shame as they did when it was derided as tasteless kitsch in the mid-century.

So much confusion still exists about these delineations, and about what is Pre-Tiki Pop and what is Tiki Pop, that whenever there is a blurring of the line, I try to clarify. I do not expect the average citizen to get it or to care, but if we here on Tiki Central don't, who will :)

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2014-10-25 00:26 ]