Tiki in Daily Breeze spin off

Aloha, I did a carving class down at the Carbrillo Marine Aquarium not to long ago and the class made it into the paper. Not a bad article either.
Ever since I started there, my boss was bugging me to do a tiki carving class, so we set one up. It was a flat fee class, that included chisels, a mallet, and eye protection(to keep) and your very own 2ft piece of mexican fan palm to carve a tiki with. I thought I would have a few co-workers show up for the class and that was it. Turns out, we didn't have enough tools so I had to turn people away! 12 people pre registered and I had to turn away 5 more because there was not enough tools or palm wood. So...we decided to schedule another one for October. Keep your eyes peeled in the "tiki events" section if you're interested in attending. I'll give ya'll fair warning, but I'm also happy doing this stuff for some free rum anytime (if I can get there...)
The day went great, and we carved out at the salt marsh observed by diving terns, blue herons and egrets.

Here's how it appeared in the paper:

Pg 1:

pg 2:

sorry - shutterfly cropped some of the text and pictures kinda weird.

Here's the full story:

Carving a niche
Aquarium class teaches the ancient art of tiki
By Paul Clinton - MORE SAN PEDRO

By attending a tiki-carving workshop at Cabrillo Beach,
Ben Dickow was able to indulge his love of a kitschy art form popularized by soldiers returning from the South Pacific after World War II.
Dickow, who attended the workshop on a Saturday in May, described his technique for carving his own tiki-head deity.
Dickow used a pre-cut Mexican fan palm stump from the marsh near Cabrillo Beach. He brought it back to a platform near the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, where he stripped off the fronds and sand down the layer of hairy fibers from the stump’s skin. Using a piece of chalk, Dickow said he drew white outlines for eyes, a mouth and tongue.
He then used chisels and a mallet to refine his tiki’s features. Dickow was carving a facsimile of the tiki, the Polynesian fertility god with a pop-culture appeal that has ebbed and flowed since the late 1940s.
“It’s got a big mouth with a tongue hanging out,” Dickow said. “I was trying to be funny.” Dickow, a 30-year-old who drove from Venice with his girl-friend, joined a group who attended the aquarium’s tiki-carving workshop.
Three and a half hours after he started, Dickow continued to carve and chip away at the palm, which began to reveal the face Dickow wanted to show.
Fifteen slides about the history of Tiki gave him a few ideas for his Polynesian “ku,” the god of strength usually represented by the knees-folded tiki symbol.
Dickow’s tongue-in-cheek carving offered just one flavor of the tiki statuettes created at the workshop.
Aquarium Educator Jim De Pompei plans to oversee another tiki-carving workshop in October.
“That was my goal, to showcase the basics on how to do it,” De Pompei said. “Every carver has his own style.”
George McAllister took his piece of fibrous, soft wood and carved a tiki with teardrop eyes, medium-sized mouth with a grin and teeth. The 52-year-old McAllister said he would set his 2-foot tall tiki behind his house.
“They symbolize Polynesian gods, but they can be anything,” McAllister said. “He’s going to be the protector of the back yard.”
Autumn Miller, a fifth-grader at Point Fermin Elementary School, viewed her tiki as a protector.
“It’s a good spirit,” she said. “It’s supposed to eat the bad spirits.”

and a few pictures the wife took:

I didn't have enough decent mexican fan palm for everybody, so I cut the ones I did have in half and that proved to work well for the masks. That's me on the right.

talking carvin' with one of the students. That's his first tiki ever down there.

I was very impressed with the quality of tikis that came out in the short 3 hours that we carved together. I knew that noone would finish, but I was shocked at how far along many of the students got and how good they looked for their first tiki (or carving for that matter). Plus...it was tons of fun and my job PAID me to do this. And they want to do it again!

I encouraged them to come visit TC (a few said they are lurkers...so feel free to post if you're reading this!)

Thanks for reading!

Way to go. Congrats on the turnout, too. Isn't it great to do something that cool AND get paid ? This kind of news makes me happy !

Crazy Al?

Wow....they never did anything like that when I was volunteering there in the early 80's. Is John Olguin still around?

Polynesiac you make us all very proud. HappyHappyHappy.
What a wonderful way to spread the tiki word. You are going to be a celebrity before you know it and then your art will go thru the roof.
Again, HappyHappyHappy.

Hey thanks for the replies and the kudos. I'm happy with how it turned out and the people who took the class seemed pretty happy too.

sax - there's nothing like getting paid for something that you enjoy doing...no matter what it is!

Booben - yeah...bummer about that picture. I had no idea that not only all these people would show up to take the class but that the press (albiet, local press) would come down and do a story about the class. I brought a bunch of my "backyard" tikis that I've carved for myself to help inspire the people taking the class. I told the students where the influences for the carvings came from (like bosko, c'al, oceanic arts, etc) and even talked about copywriting images and the such.
Thankfully, no where in the article did it say that I came up with that design - becuase it's blatently obvious to us here on TC that I didn't. I had no intention of that carving being put in the paper. So, sorry c'al. Tell ya what...I'll carve a sacrificial tiki for that beach burn...

Cyl - John (Mr. San Pedro) Olguin is still around and comes in at least once a week to hang out. Early 80's??? Larry is still here and so is Suzanne and do you remember steve? He's my boss.

Benzart - thanks for the comps, my friend. I'm sure that I would have started carving long ago if I had had the chance to watch you spin your magic in vegas. I hope to see some new carvers posting their stuff in creating tiki soon.

No specific date in Oct has been decided, but I'll let ya know. Feel free to drop by the AQ anytime if you're ever in the area.