More rum, less killing.
Tastes great, less filling.

:)

I do agree with tiki shark about the religious oppression in Hawaii the earlier era..It was a perversion of power and dominance, and caused suffering for women and men the lower casts of people in Hawaii.. However, the other side of the spiritual, (not religious) coin, are some of the creation myths and stories that nourish the peoples imaginations and inspire art! Where would we be, If "Maui" didn't throw that net over the Sun, and tame it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81ui_(Hawaiian_mythology)
My latest work was inspired by a Papua New guinea protection image called "Hewe Meri"
She is a protector of Women, and the mother of her clan.
http://www.art-pacific.com/artifacts/nuguinea/sepikriv/sepikmid/yentmeri.htm
These images, while not exactly Tiki, have their own Impact on the creation of art and can translate into some of the stuff we love to create!

the thread that never ends
and constantly repeats the same thing
but in a different voice.....

DON'T you all realize that this thread is a plot by hewey to keep us away from our work?

"Shut up and paint." - Robert Coane

:)

OOOHHHH, but Ken,
Isn't that what tiki art is?
the same stuff in a different voice?
(By the by...Don't blame Hewey...this thread was asleep for 2 1/2 years before I gave it a "Princess charming" kiss to wake it up 2 days ago!)

basically, we're all hacks
simply re-vamping Polynesian pop designs
that the designers/artists of THAT period
snatched from Oceanic Arts books and trips abroad...

But,seriously,Tiki Artists have done more as an organized force
pushing and expanding the boundaries
than most art movements...

The revolution of tiki art has begun.

This is intended as humor so don't get all Sarah Palin on me.

Well said, Geedavee!
Here's another twist...

I think the trademark of Tiki art is a sense of play-fullness and humor, along with an otherworldly flavor..So we place ourselves in another category all together Thus the "uni-brow".

Does and should, "Hi-brow" art,make you laugh?

If we get political and serious, don't we take a chance of becoming maudlin, and, Gods forbid ,"keane-ish"
http://www.squidoo.com/margaretkeane#module33911672
Don't we need more reasons to laugh and feel light hearted these days?
If I see a weeping Tiki, It better be crying over a split Mai-Tai!

Make me somthing Tripical. You know,a mai-tai,with 3 shots of rum!
Is it just me, or do whales look like they're built upside down?

[ Edited by: palapala 2009-06-25 10:53 ]

On 2009-06-25 10:48, palapala wrote:
If I see a weeping Tiki, It better be crying over a split Mai-Tai!

How about a Remorseful Cannibal?
:)

remorseful?!!
Are you sure that he's not just really sad there are'nt any leftovers?

positive!
He has eaten his last friend...
a commentary about how one's obsessions
can sometimes destroy others around them....

after that came the Lonely cannibal...
feeling and pondering the results of his previous actions...

This is a very interesting and complicated topic to me, i think a lot about this too..
what confuses me the most about tiki in general is that it has a big component of paradise, people is drove to it, because it makes you think of perfect times, in perfect places, were you can live naked and get food from a tree (a return to the basis and happiness)... but on the other hand, old Hawaiian kapu system had nothing to do with that...and the golden tiki restaurants era, bring in me equally mixed feelings. because they were supposed to represent paradise, but they were for Hollywood stars and they were made by using sacred stuff to other cultures to make bars... so little by little the younger people started not liking them...
what's going on now, well i see a lot of artists trying to have their own style inspired by tiki but making their own designs...
About what hewey was asking, the objective should be to scape to paradise... I do get that shallow feeling he was talking about some times and it makes me think, if tiki maybe it's a limited style, so that's why it would be difficult to make grabing balls art out of it...
But here's an other point of view...
I have this young idealistic sculptor friend that is trying to make grabing ball art, art that would kick you and make you think.. so he does screaming desperate zombies, when you see them you get exactly the feeling young people have here, having no future, no possibilities of progress, specially if you are an artist... so i get what he is trying to do... the thing is, that then, he don't want to keep them, because they are vomits of his anger... he wants to exchange them for my shallow "tikis"...
so what's my point for making my sort of "tikis"? that you can be the sort of artist that reflects the reality you live in, that's fine, it's one of the strong objectives of art, (but aren't you adding to the general despair? making the world even more desperate and ugly? he didn't thought of that, he was just reflecting what he see)
I use to make gargoyles they reflected my fears, but they were colourful too, representing my hopes , but i thought about what they represent by them selves, and I didn't wanted to keep going...
so now I'm trying to make stuff that represents the way i would want things to be, i'm trying to make interesting, warm but a little scary "tikis" is true that they are not fine art, maybe nothing on the tiki culture can turn in to a fine art, but the difference to me between one tiki artist and an other, is that you can see how much love and innovation they put in to their work, so there are tikis and tikis maybe they are all tikis but only some of them represents the artist that made them, and add something to the table...
I've seen stuff refer as KU that were a pole with eyes... and then there's Crazy Al for example that you can see that even he is trying to make a Hawaiian god he puts so much care and twist that i would call it a Crazy Al, more than a ku....
so i think that to make tiki art meaningful specially because it comes from a not very nice thing, the important thing would be to try to make your OWN paradise in the way, and share that with the world... that's why i do it...

My Space

[ Edited by: Clarita 2009-06-25 15:38 ]

Well said Clarita!

i think the secret is to be able to inject all of your
fears,anxieties,hopes,dreams,nightmares,etc.
and cram them into a piece
WITHOUT THE VIEWER REALIZING IT...

Why draw a Zombie
or an apothesis of pain

when you can hide it
and let the viewer absorb those feelings and the painting's "mana"
(and walk away feeling renewed,inspired,and changed)
instead of feeling like they've just talked to their gramma for an hour
and listened to all her health problems,etc...

Great Art should stimulate and inspire
and,even tho it's a Tiki piece
a lot of artists here have achieved that
despite the "box" we're confined in!

On 2009-06-25 13:32, Clarita wrote:

so i think that to make tiki art meaningful specially because it comes from a not very nice thing, the important thing would be to try to make your OWN paradise in the way, and share that with the world... that's why i do it...

BINGO

It encompasses the good and the bad. But you make what you want of it. You can overlook the bad in your work but you should be aware of it.

After all, the Poly-pop movement was born of fantasy and escapism by combining multiple cultures and even some imaginary ones. We're just creating new fantasies based on the first wave (and traditional) and hopefully stretching it into new territory. There's room for "deep" and political content but it's definitely not required to make great art.

[Edited by squid because one sentence made absolutely no sense at all. I do that sometimes. And Kinny, Scanners is the most raddest movie ever, except for maybe The Transatlantic Feedback.]

[ Edited by: squid 2009-06-25 15:11 ]

On 2009-06-25 11:08, little lost tiki wrote:
How about a Remorseful Cannibal?
:)

"Alas, poor Yorick! I ate him, Horatio."

On 2009-06-25 15:00, squid wrote:
[Edited by squid because one sentence made absolutely no sense at all. I do that sometimes. And Kinny, Scanners is the most raddest movie ever, except for maybe The Transatlantic Feedback.]

DON'T FORGET
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