Basement Kahuna -New Maori Bone Pendant 3/04

Our tiki looks perfect, we will love having it on display in our home. Thank you so much, Wendy

Basment, I realy like this guy he is looking very old school.
Love the drark color also.

Thank you for the commission, Wendy, and enjoy! Sven, you're a Rennaissance man. Surf, I generally do a lot of distressing to all of my tikis..I like them to look like they walked out of the Trader's in 1949! I think a quality, old looking patina/finish is half of the mana of a tiki.

Neat little bone Tangaroa I did tonight as a stress reliever. [img]

The Kerawa, New Guinea outward island dwellers, were fierce headhunters. Skull boards like this were a marriage of a Gope/Spirit Hook. Before a Canoe or Meeting House festival, they would hunt heads for weeks and hang the overmodeled skulls of the victims on boards such as these. Figuring no Skull Board reproduction would be complete without it's quarry, I found a very convincing plastic medical model and made one to complete it! The second item is a neat little beachcomber style host stand made from some leftover lauhala, bamboo and wood I had laying around from a job, and a spare ship's wheel repop.

Da shop...Dude, c'mon..Bay Park ain't got 'nothin on Athens, Georgia! Sexy lives here..

The Cockeyed Mayor Of CarvaKaKai.

[ Edited by: Basement Kahuna 2007-10-30 18:59 ]

Good lookin shop there, Homeboy! Is everything in there for sale?

One bad mutha ... shut cho mouf! D, SEXY is all in the hair man, all in the hair

Your carvings are amazing. the skull board is very cool - I love the history behind the design. Perfect for howloohween.

That stand is the shit too. I bet if you had free riegn to design a tiki paradise, it would come out looking like a cross between the mai kai and the wreck bar. I really admire your attention to detail.

Coming from three of my favorite carvers that's good stuff! Aloha Nui (and that tiki paradise may happen soon!)

Those pic's make me want to touch myself.

Basement, you are blowing my mind with all your goodies.

Everything in there is for sale that's not on commish, isn't a vital organ, and won't get me put in the slammer!

Is there anything you don't do well? Love the skull board and your new cannibal,
all the bone stuff, and a great singer too. It's always a treat to see 'em, like museum
pieces.

On 2007-11-01 22:44, congatiki wrote:
Is there anything you don't do well?

Get haircuts, or learn to comb his hair.

The strange thing is, the second to last post (not literally), I thought he had just cut it all off?

Nice to see you posting your stuff BK. How's that Maori panel coming?
I cut a piece of bone on the bandsaw the other day, HOW can you Stand that SMELL? Gross!

A lot of great carvings in these pictures. What a great shop, except I don't see any wood chips. No fair cleaning up before taking the photos.

Downdraft exhaust fan! Lifesaver. No smell whatsoever now. All piped outside!

Gorgeous work as always BK :D Very nice

Thanks, Hewey. Stacking it up right now...big plans on the horizon.

Hey, hey, Moai Moai...Rock and Roll will never die..

The Cockeyed Mayor Of CarvaKaKai.

[ Edited by: Basement Kahuna 2007-11-14 21:06 ]

A whole lotta PNG Gope Boards..

For the over liquored friend's car keys..actual old blacksmith made hooks!

Crikes!! How big is that float behind you in the Moai pic?!?! That's a monsta!

Cool stuff. Great moai but what's a PNG Gope Board?

A Paupua New Guinea Gope or Gopa, an initiation carving, usually bearing resemblance to a shield (which is what I usually call them to foster a better understanding). They are really a type of clan/ancestor talisman, carved at each stage of a male's initiation. This is basically a dwelling place for the power of his ancestors placed in the Haus Tambarin, or sacred men's meeting house of the village. This keeps that power there and guides and protects him in his growth, social life, and decisions. At each initiation the old boards are burned and a new one carved, until the man reaches the final stage, for which the high Gope, the Darimo Ibiha is carved. I have done repros of these for years, as the real ones are hard to find but they are very appealing visually. The Mai Kai features two of my Gope Boards, in the garden.

Thanks. Now they're even cooler!

Good talking story Thursday wit ya bruddah... and your work lately... spectacular as usual.

The Moai is onehellova hunk of log and classic stylee as always.

I'm taking a leap of fate in my carving career today... I'll let you know if anything comes of it. :wink:

I love the designs of gope boards, and yours are just beautiful! They look just like the real thing. How did you do the paint on them? The paint job really makes them look like they are authentic artifacts.

Just very, very heavy distressing.... I actually do use natural source paints on them (buttermilk paint from Constantine's works well, too). I also collect original Paupua New Guinea artifacts; nothing helps like having the real deal around. Here are a just few for kicks.. (Angoram, Mindibit, Maprik, Iatmul, and Kwoma)

That is an awesome bag of ancient goodies you have gathered there. These look like hard to get to me. Well, that could be wrong, I have no idea. I followed the advice you gave so often, long before I decided to join TC, to collect some literature about oceanic art, but it must take years and years to create such an authentic ken.

The pics look pretty much like taken in a museum. Your place must be stuffed up to the ceiling. As your head. :wink: (You don´t mind, the head is not meant to be a museum)

Here is a question:
I never heard of buttermilk paint, can you explain to a foreigner, what that means? Perhaps I didn´t use the right translation.

What would be the effect of this buttermilk paint?

Greetings to the "Keller Magier".

tok-tok

If you like to, visit me here.
myspace

[ Edited by: tok-tok 2007-11-26 16:34 ]

Hi,Tok..I'm not even close to some of the folks I know in the stuff department, but if you're in Athens, stop in. Milk Paint is basically buttermilk, lye, and natural pigment. It was the paint used by the early American settlers, to right up through the late 1800s. Very tough stuff.

The Cockeyed Mayor Of CarvaKaKai.

[ Edited by: Basement Kahuna 2007-11-27 11:07 ]

Hey Basement Kahuna, that´s a great collection of PNG art. I realy like this kind of art,
it´s especially mystical and let my adventure heard beating. Thanks for posting and Prost, Kai

Hey Basement Kahuna, that´s a great collection of PNG art. I realy like this kind of art,
it´s especially mystical and let my adventure heard beating. Thanks for posting and Prost, Kai

Thanks, Haikai..I always enjoyed the PNG stuff, too. Here is a 3-foot 1/2 -round hardwood Marquesan I just finished today, and a better shot of that Moai..

Boy oh boy...I always love the BK stuff. The finish is always perfect, no matter what
you are doing. Top shelf.

Long live Congatiki!

Yes, the moai is also very beautiful. I like his big cheekbones and the small mouth. The color is also great. Do you have a picture from the back?

Hey BK just got the cannible tiki I ordered from you in today's mail. It's so great when dreams come true. It's so well done and such a scary tiki, maybe my nightmares came true. Anyway I've got it hidden away until Christmas for Dan, he's a lucky guy. You can post photos of it here, he never touches the computer, I'm really danlovestikis. Have a great night and happy carving, Wendy

Glad you like! Gotta look out for your labelmates. Here's me and yon cannibal taking a break at the workshop..the (at the time) filthy workshop.

On 2007-11-29 09:29, Basement Kahuna wrote:

Turn off the bright fluorescent lights, put a drink in your hand, and it would look like you are setting at a really terrific looking old school tiki bar, with all your creations. It even has the authentic RevBambooBen white ceiling.

BK the marquesan is fantastic you definitely have the
original look in your carves.

Mahalo, guys...Johnny, hey, it's a workshop, man. MY job is to make YOU look good :)

On 2006-03-17 17:02, Basement Kahuna wrote:
New Tongaroa born today! He's 4 feet tall and about 14 inches in diameter. One of my favorite Cook Island images. I may bring him to Coontiki just for some scenery! I'm loaded to the hilt with comissions right now, so Tonga was sort of my "spare time" carve for a while. Aloha!

hey BK,

trawling through your thread and remembered this one... i vaguely recall you posting step-by-steps with the process of shaping the tang's body - but couldn't find them.

maybe it was in the great "Tiki Carving Methodology" thread, but sadly a lot of those initial posts have their pics missing.

Any chance of you re-posting those progress pics if you still have em?

Cheers.
Harro.
PS Love the new stuff too.

Harro, let me see if I can find them. That Tangaroa is in Knoxville now with TNT. Gecko posted a great step-by-step on carving a Tangaroa, too, way back in 2001 or so. I may have that somewhere as well.

BK - (if i may ask) what is the stain on the 3-foot 1/2 -round hardwood Marquesan?
I just grabbed a few test cans at Home Depot but im not happy with them.

That stain is an old trade secret given to me by an architectual salvage guy who restores old nautical stuff a long time ago...2 parts mineral spirits, 1 part (get this) STANDARD roofing tar, and about 1/2 cup of Japan Dryer. Takes about two days to dry nice. The results on more porous woods, palm especially, are incredible. But you need to give it about two coats of a good matte or satin finish over like Deft or Grumbacher (stay away from that shiny polyurethane slop; number one finish mistake tiki carvers make.)