"Twilight of the Tiki" portraits from Chet Phillips

-New From the Studio of Chet Phillips Illustration-

"Twilight of the Tiki" is a collection of 36 Tiki portraits created digitally using the natural media software Painter. Each colorful and mysterious Tiki has its own bit of descriptive attributes and history. All are now available at the newly opened "chetart" shop as high quality signed archival prints.

Please visit this link to see the collection:

http://www.chetart.etsy.com/shop

Very nice work...love the concept. :)

The term "TIKI" actually originates from Polynesian culture, and either describes carvings based on the traditions of that culture group, or inspired by its mid-century reinvention, known as Polynesian pop.

Oh darned nice designs!
That Chet Phillips is good!

I like the dragon TIki - where you can learn all knowledge, but will forget it all when you cross back over the bridge that took you to the tiki. Seems like all these would be great in some sort of animated manga series.

I find it sad that for an artist with that much talent, there seems to have been little effort expended here to link the designs to any Oceanic or mid-century traditions. Among the 36 renderings, I can only find a handful where I detect actual Tiki inspiration, the rest is all over the place in design, patterns and colors. As I repeatedly stated, a Tiki is not just any carved face with a toothy grin, it has a distinct heritage and context. Even when it does end up being more fantasy than authentic, Tiki is not a stylistic free for all. I'm sorry, but to create "Owl Tikis" and "Tiger Tikis" is not much different than Disney making Mickey Mouse and Goofy look like wood carvings and calling them Tiki. Some might think they are, but I do not.

The artistic traditions of original Oceanic cultures are vast and varied in their artistic genius, and the works of mid-century Tiki carvers that used them as inspirations are incredibly creative and funny. Without any real connection to either, any piece of art, no matter how talented in its execution, could be termed fantasy tribal/folk/world art --but not Tiki.

A big thank you goes out to everyone who contacted me directly regarding my work with your words of encouragement, advice and stories.

I gotta go with Bigbro on this one, nice work however what is it that makes your art TiKi?

A big thank you goes out to everyone who contacted me directly regarding my work with your words of encouragement, advice and stories.

I'm afraid that you've made it worse, your comment tells me, "That bigbrotiki guy is picking on me, what a JERK." "I will say that many have talked to me on the side to show everyone that he is just so wrong!"
When Bigbrotiki speaks, you had better listen, I'm going to guess with 3 posts under your belt, you don't know that he WROTE the book on TiKi.
I want to encourage you to get some advice on Tiki and change your story.

Uh...Bbbbobs, thank you, but....err...I really appreciate your support...bbbbut...it may come across a BIT forceful, not too subtle, if you know what I mean.
He DID after all thank people for their advice, and I am sure I did not remain the only one who suggested a little more Polynesian oriented techniques.
Really, thank you for your show of solidarity, but I feel quite at peace with this thread: I said my part, and he is talented and experienced enough to take it or leave it.

Thanks Sven.

"I'm afraid that you've made it worse, your comment tells me, "That bigbrotiki guy is picking on me, what a JERK." "I will say that many have talked to me on the side to show everyone that he is just so wrong!"
When Bigbrotiki speaks, you had better listen, I'm going to guess with 3 posts under your belt, you don't know that he WROTE the book on TiKi.
I want to encourage you to get some advice on Tiki and change your story." -bananabobs-

chetart handled himself tactfully and politely even with some negative feedback.

Something similar happened to jthole in his Tiki Marketplace threads here and here. He too was very polite in dealing with it.

Tiki Central should be continually striving to remain an open and friendly corner of the web. Though clearly both chetart and jthole posted for the purpose of selling things, their behavior was exemplary.

Here, here!

Where ?, where ??? :) Hear, hear, this from the prone to profanity primitive himself?

I basically agree, woof woof, but sometimes too much nicey nicey pussyfooting and purely positivist backslapping suppresses honesty and passion, and becomes nonconstructive in a creative environment.

Here, here!

[ Edited by: daves not home 2008-07-13 16:33 ]

There, there!

Let's shake the Magic 8 Ball of Wikipedia and see what it says...

"Constructive criticism is a compassionate attitude towards the person qualified for criticism. Having higher experience, gifts, respect, knowledge in specific field and being able to verbally convince at the same time, this person is intending to uplift the other person materially, morally, emotionally or spiritually. For high probability in succeeding his compassionate criticism the critic has to be in some kind of healthy personal relationship with the other one, which is normally a parent to child, friend to friend, teacher to student, spouse to spouse or any kind of recognized authority in specific field. Hence the word constructive is used so that something is created or visible outcome generated rather than the opposite. Participatory learning in pedagogy is based on these principles of constructive criticism. Here the saying applies that example is better than precept.

There can be tension between constructive and useful criticism; for instance, a critic might usefully help an individual artist to recognize what is poor or slapdash in their body of work—but the critic may have to appear harsh and judgmental in order to state this. But useful criticism is a practical part of constructive criticism"

BigBro and BananahammockBob did start their critiques with "an artist with this much talent" and "nice work" respectively

[ Edited by: Daves Not Home 2008-07-13 16:36 ]

Chet clearly has a lot of talent and has developed a line of prints that 99.9% of the population would identify as "tiki". He is trying to get the word out about his prints and came here hoping to scare up a little business, nothing wrong with that. What he didn't know is that his prints do not fit the Tiki Central and BigBro definition of tiki. I think BigBro could have been MUCH more diplomatic in his approach. Instead of skewering the artist, offer him some constructive criticism. Who knows; a kinder, gentler approach may have led to Chet doing some research into tiki and making an effort towards a more historically-influenced representation in his work. Instead, the negativity expressed here is likely to make him (and others) think that tikiphiles are a bunch of elitists that shun anyone that doesn't toe the forum line.

I am just doing what I have been doing from day one: Promoting and preserving the uniqueness of what I define as Tiki culture, a definition that did not exist before I published the Book of Tiki. If anybody has a BETTER and more complete definition up their sleeve please go ahead and let it be known.

I see my previous criticism as quite constructive. Just because the internet oracle of Wikipedia states that using negative examples is NOT constructive, doesn't mean it is so. The problem with "being MUCH more diplomatic" about these things is that many people just don't get it then.