Meet some So-Cal Carvers at the Long Beach Tiki Fest

Armed with a new camera I packed up my Ohana & headed for Tiki Beach (Long Beach Tiki Fest 8/21).
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I’m posting here at “Creating Tiki” rather than “Tiki Events”, because this is all about the carvers.

Here’s some pics of the carvers and their wares.

This guy is from Visalia & carves lots of tikis as well as some native American art. His name is Zachary.(Name correction coutesy of Tiki5-0). His Tikis shown below...
All are in various stages of completion.





Here’s my future carver. No, make that future part time carver/full time Doctor, Lawyer, or Engineer like his Dad. He’s almost 3.
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This guy’s name is Horatio, and he wants to start carving. The guy just walked up & took over TikiTony’s demo log – Tony didn’t mind at all. I steered him to TC – so maybe we’ll see him here in future.
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TC’s very own TikiTony on the left, I’m on the right. Tony’s super cool & works out of Ventura. I could probably have sat & talked with him for an hour or more if I had the time. Tony does most of his work with a chainsaw & had lots of good tips.

This is Dave Avila, who works out of Long Beach. He hasn’t posted at TC yet, but you can see some of his work at http://www.islandtikis.com.
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This is Tiki-Ray, who lives in Rancho Cucamonga. Real nice guy, crappy picture.

His Tikis…

One in the works.

Nice nose ring.


“Real Tiki Woodchips $5.00” I think Tiki-Ray’s on to something here. If this worked, we’d all be millionaires.
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Here’s Matt & Todd of Bartiki. Matt’s on the left, Todd on the right.

I really liked their tikis. The Bartikis were a little mysterious about where they came from. Apparently they were carved by “a guy named Gary...”.

Some more tikis w/ a nice tiki bar setup.
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Danny aka Chikkitiki aka Diablo Tiki. Well known on TC, it was a real pleasure to finally meet this guy. Super friendly and had plenty of time to “talk tiki”. Here he is holding up his new Witco Style tiki mug, which really looked great. He didn’t have any tikis out at the time – I think he was going to do some carving demo on Sunday. He had plenty of Tiki Diablo shirts on display, and was even nice enough to give a kid’s shirt to my son – gratis. Thanks a bunch, Bro.

Coincidentally, Danny happens to be working on some display material for the Trader Joe’s in Rancho Santa Margarita, CA – just down the street from my house. Small world.
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Here’s Crazy Al, peddlin’ tiki paraphernalia. Busy with customers, I didn’t really get a chance to talk w/ him much.

Crazy Al’s booth

Too much shadow for a good view here, but these tikis looked real nice.
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Also met Tiki5-0 briefly, met Phil Falcon & a real nice lady (forgot her name) who posts on TC as "Weence" at the "Tiki Madness" booth, and narrowly missed Polynesiac Jim. I think Sunday was going to be even better, with lots of good music, etc. You can let me know how it went.

Great to see everyone…

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"Ah, good taste! What a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness."
-Pablo Picasso

[ Edited by: Aaron's Akua on 2004-08-23 14:43 ]

[ Edited by: Aaron's Akua on 2004-08-23 14:49 ]

[ Edited by: Aaron's Akua on 2004-08-23 15:26 ]

[ Edited by: Aaron's Akua on 2004-08-23 15:27 ]

[ Edited by: Aaron's Akua on 2004-08-24 12:02 ]

Aaron's Akua,

Great job with the pictures and thanks for taking the time you did to post them. It's always great to match the faces with the names.

nice pics! it was nice meeting you as well aaron. you can see my backside in pics 2 & 3 in the black shirt and gray shorts.:blush: i bought the tiki in pic 5 with the rope around it's head and tongue sticking out. my friend bought the short one in front. i believe the carvers name is zachary. he was a cool guy and talked with me for a while and gave me some carving tips which i appreciated. tikitony was a really cool guy. i agree as well i could have talked with him for a long time if i had the time to. it was a fun event with everyone there being super friendly. can't wait for the next event!

[ Edited by: tiki5-0 on 2004-08-23 15:23 ]

[ Edited by: tiki5-0 on 2004-08-23 15:28 ]

Aaron thanks Big time for these pictures. Really brought back old memories. Good to see some working faces to the TC names. Thanks for the time and effort it took to gather and post these pic's. Well done

Damn, thats cool. I am going to have to move one day. thanks for the pictures. Wish we had stuff like that around here.

My pleasure. There was lots of great tiki art on display. Tiki5-0, I was really checking those tikis out at Zachary's booth. Nice score - what did it set you back? I was in the lookin' not buying mode, and it was great that all of the artists were willing to talk carving with so many paying customers milling around.

it was $200. that sucker is big, too. i'm about 5'10" and it's another 5-6 inches taller than me.

Wow, that's a bargain. How do carvers make any money? Just about everyone that I talked to at the event had a full time job but also carved tikis on the side. So, to do tikis I guess you have to be pretty motivated, but also pretty laid back. It makes for some pretty interesting personalities.

A couple of the "shopkeeper" type vendors that I talked to had carved some good prototypes, then sent them off to Mexico or the Philipines to have duplicates carved.

You gotta love carving tikis - cause not many people can really do it for the money.

Congratulations on your score. I really liked that guy's tkis.

I had to go back & check out your work after we met. Those 3 are really good. Are you working on a new one?

Enjoyed da pics! I wish I could have brought a few drum base tikis out there and pounded a couple out with da rest of the talented carvers out there. I'll definalty be around da mainland next year for these tings!

tanks a'gen fo da pics

nope, haven't started on #4 yet. i WILL be starting it this weekend. we're going to the beach saturday afternoon-night, so i figuered-what a better place to start one? so hopefully soon it will be done and i will post pics of it.

5-0: Please do. Can't wait!

Gecko: De Nada. Make sure to let the So-Cal TC folks know when you come out. Luvta meecha.