Florida - General Tiki - Tiki Central

A aquarj Tiki Socialite SF bay area, CA Joined: Apr 02, 2002 Posts: 1125	A aquarj Posted posted on Tue, Sep 3, 2002 8:19 PM Do you folks really think that kind of tiki is the creative idea of just one guy (Wayne Coombs I guess)? If so, he must be a very very old guy and his work must've been seen by a LOT of people not just in Florida but around the world. If creative ideas are the pinnacle, then has WC had any other ideas? That sounds worse than I mean it - no disrespect intended, honest. I just don't see how someone could claim that there's a whole lot of original thought contained in any derivative tiki style, and WC's style looks pretty derivative to me. Even in less hazy subject areas, I think it's reasonable to distinguish between ideas and execution. With music, it's easy to draw a line between the writer and the singer - Elvis and Sinatra were both great on execution, but not much on songwriting. That Palm Tiki guy might be good at carving that kind of tiki, but not so great at coming up with other ideas. But so what - it's a commercial, decorative art based on a derivative style. It's not fine art and the basic iconography by its nature is definitely not copyrightable, in obvious contrast to using a Disney character or something like that. If an artist wants to carve out a niche ("carve" - haha) for himself, where he can develop a unique style and receive credit for unique ideas, then it would seem like a bad choice to restrict himself to an iconography that has been woven into pop culture commercial art with nearly endless variations for over 50 years. But it doesn't have to be so complicated and planned. If he chooses instead to become part of the pop-commercial art world and make tikis that people will buy just because they're fun and cool, then great! In that case though, it seems unreasonable to expect fine art recognition for derivative commercial art. This is actually more consistent with the attitudes of people like Shag, who openly claims to be a commercial artist, and who doesn't feel threatened by others who ape his style because he knows he can always dip into his own well of creative ideas and skills. -Randy

Do you folks really think that kind of tiki is the creative idea of just one guy (Wayne Coombs I guess)? If so, he must be a very very old guy and his work must've been seen by a LOT of people not just in Florida but around the world. If creative ideas are the pinnacle, then has WC had any other ideas?

That sounds worse than I mean it - no disrespect intended, honest. I just don't see how someone could claim that there's a whole lot of original thought contained in any derivative tiki style, and WC's style looks pretty derivative to me. Even in less hazy subject areas, I think it's reasonable to distinguish between ideas and execution. With music, it's easy to draw a line between the writer and the singer - Elvis and Sinatra were both great on execution, but not much on songwriting. That Palm Tiki guy might be good at carving that kind of tiki, but not so great at coming up with other ideas. But so what - it's a commercial, decorative art based on a derivative style. It's not fine art and the basic iconography by its nature is definitely not copyrightable, in obvious contrast to using a Disney character or something like that.

If an artist wants to carve out a niche ("carve" - haha) for himself, where he can develop a unique style and receive credit for unique ideas, then it would seem like a bad choice to restrict himself to an iconography that has been woven into pop culture commercial art with nearly endless variations for over 50 years. But it doesn't have to be so complicated and planned. If he chooses instead to become part of the pop-commercial art world and make tikis that people will buy just because they're fun and cool, then great! In that case though, it seems unreasonable to expect fine art recognition for derivative commercial art. This is actually more consistent with the attitudes of people like Shag, who openly claims to be a commercial artist, and who doesn't feel threatened by others who ape his style because he knows he can always dip into his own well of creative ideas and skills.

-Randy

Post #7539 by aquarj on Tue, Sep 3, 2002 8:19 PM