Tikis at Stanford U. (image heavy)

The Schmama Lama was in town recently, and I took her to Stanford to visit the Rodin sculpture garden there (the Gates of Hell are there, if you're a sculpture fan, it's an awesome sight to behold).

When looking up the exact location online, I learned that the Cantor Art Center at Stanford also has a collection of Oceanic art, and another sculpture garden in different location entirely, that is dedicated to Papua New Guinea art. They brought some artists over from Papua New Guinea a few years back, and the artists did a whole bunch of carvings right on site. Some are stone, most are wood, and they're pretty darned neat.

There are a cluster of poles carved from trees that are 20, maybe even 30 feet tall (well, okay, maybe 20 -- but they're big!). There are two large slit drums on the ground, ready to be thumped. To one side, there are some painted poles, and some great tikis. To the south is a large, striking carving with bird wings outstretched, and to the north are a variety of lovely stone carvings. The pieces are all in a wooded area, which makes photography a challenge. The sculpture garden is near some on-campus housing, at the corner of Santa Theresa and Lomita.

The museum has a very small Oceanic art collection, and about half of it is Indonesian. There are a few Papua New Guinea pieces, and a cool small Maori canoe, but if you miss it, it's not the end of the world. The museum has more Rodin pieces, some neat ancient Mesopotamian, Mediterranean, Egyptian & Asian art, and a few nice Renaissance pieces that are worth seeing. The museum's collection of modern art is pretty lackluster.

Stanford is just a very short bit north (a mile? maybe two?) of the Palo Alto Trader Vic's -- while it's likely the lamest of all the Trader Vic's, it's still a Trader Vic's, and it has a pretty impressive collection of Papua New Guinea art & tikis of its own; Stanford & Trader Vic's make a logical one-two punch of tiki for a day out.

http://museum.stanford.edu/

Here are my pictures from two visits to the museum & the outdoor sculpture garden:
http://photo.humuhumu.com/v/stanfordart/

And here are some highlights:

:down: The tallest poles at the center of the garden -- they're big!

:down: Close-ups of some of the poles:

:down: One of the two large slit drums:

:down: Painted poles:

:down: My favorite tiki there:

:down: This tiki was inspired by Rodin's Thinker, also at the Cantor Arts Center:

:down: Some stone tikis:

:down: At the museum:

More Polynesian than Pop, but it sure is groovy!

WooHooo! Great pics. Thanks for taking the time to post & share them :)

thanks humu!

i feel incredibly lame to admit that, having grown up here --literally at stanford-- i have never seen these carvings!! i have taken many to see the statue garden, even after the did the renevation of the museum. wow, i really need to go back and re-examine the stanford grounds. my grandparents worked there, i went there for musical institutes, and my brother attended graduate school/was married there, and YET, i have never seen these. wow!

big mahalos! this is on my definite next-to-do list.

Holy Wood chips! I forgot all about this. I lived in Palo Alto in 94 and during the World Cup, which was held at Stanford, the visiting New Guinea carvers were working on the art for this installation near the stadium and doing demos for all to see. It was amazing! Here is a link I found with some more info about the project:

The New Guinea Sculpture Garden

Great Pics Humu, they brought on a complete flood of memories.

Chongolio

Man, what a find! One could shoot a surreal dream sequence there, about being lost in the forest , and scary gods gawking down on you, like Disney's Snow white being chased by the living trees.

Or just sit in there, among the ancestors, and meditate on the origin of art and creation.

Wow great stuff! Following Chongolio's link I find that you can be immortalized in the sculpture garden.
Get your name on a plaque! Unfortunately it's probably too late as it looks like this all took place over a decade ago. But who knows, maybe donations toward ongoing maintenance are plaque worthy. I think I'll give them a call. And hey, even if you don't get your name on a plaque, it's still a worthy cause.

from http://www.art.net/TheGallery/NewGuinea_Room/garden-contrib.html

Leave your mark
on the New Guinea Sculpture Garden.

Building a major sculpture garden of New Guinea art is unfortunately an expensive proposition and we need your help to finish it. Our current resources of $200,000 are sufficient to finish the carving portion of the project but we need another $40,000 to complete the site installation and landscaping.
We hope you will consider joining us in this historic effort through one of the sponsorship opportunities below. Your support will be deeply appreciated by the artists and generations of Stanford students.

$25- spending money for the artists.
$50- to sponsor a meal or outing for the artists.
$100- to sponsor a weekend trip for the artists.
$250- to sponsor a fern for the sculpture garden landscaping.
$500- to sponsor a palm tree for the sculpture garden landscaping.
$750- to sponsor a bench in the finished garden.
$1,000- to sponsor a small pole or stone work.
$2,500- to sponsor a medium sized pole or stone work.
$5,000- to sponsor the largest poles or stone works in the garden.
$10,000- to sponsor the travel expenses for all the artists.
Everything helps and all donations are of course tax-deductible. Donations of $250 and over will be acknowledged in the finished garden. For more information, please talk to Kowspi at the site or contact Jim Mason, the Project Director at (415) 369-7949. Checks should be made payable to Stanford University and dropped in the donation box at the site or mailed to:
New Guinea Sculpture Garden Project
Anthropology Department, Bldg 110
Stanford University
Stanford CA, 94305-2145

Thank you for your support.

Funny, we were just walking around on campus (hosting a parental visit no less) a few weeks ago. We literally paused at a corner of the quad to decide whether to go right (toward the Rodin garden) or left (toward other stuff). We went left!

I didn't know the New Guinea stuff was there! Thanks for the post, and next time we'll go right. Stanford is a great campus to walk around, and a perennially inspirational capper is the ride up to the top of Hoover Tower, to take a look at where you've been. For anyone interested in such things, the campus also boasts a couple LARGE totem poles (a la Pacific Northwest, not tiki) - one near Meyer Library and one in another forested nook just off of the History corner of the quad.

BTW, I agree that there IS kind of a spooky look to some of those forested shots. Sort of Blair Witch goes oceanic.

-Randy

While it's run by the Cantor Arts Center, it's actually on the other side of campus, not near the Rodin stuff. To get there, take the Campus Drive loop counter-clockwise away from Palm Drive, after a ways you'll come to Santa Theresa, where you'll turn left. Follow Santa Theresa until you get to Lomita, and it's on your right.

Great link, Chongolio!

I think this just goes to show that tiki can lurk in the most unexpected places. This is practically right in our own backyard, and so far, it looks like no tikiphiles were aware of its existence, even hardcore tikiphiles who have lived here for ages. It being in a region that's thick with Polynesian Pop is a fluke -- it could just as easily have been an installation on the campus of some university in a PolyPop-desolate area.

Who knows what other caches of hidden tikis are lurking out there, waiting to be discovered?

Hey, that's right next to Tresidder (the student union)! Which means we actually went right by it on our last visit. So, next time we'll go left again, but further left! FYI for any visitors, parking abounds in the Tresidder lot if you can't find street parking there.

-Randy

wow!

Thank you for sharing this is amazing!

Almost, but not quite, makes me wish I would have attended Stanfurd instead of Cal.

Great place.
We should have a party there.

[ Edited by: Unga Bunga 2006-06-06 01:59 ]

Thank you Humuhumu for posting these pictures. I have spent a great amount of time online (dial up-explains a great amount of time) looking for pictures of PNG carvings for inspiration for my carvings. I have never come across these and it was a real treat to see so many pictures of quality pieces. If you have more pictures, please add. Thanks again.
JP

On 2006-06-05 23:46, Unga Bunga wrote:
Great place.
We should have a party there.

[ Edited by: Unga Bunga 2006-06-06 01:59 ]

Okay, first it was a picnic, now it's a party. Either way I'm there. Do they allow big bonfires?

Okay, first it was a picnic, now it's a party. Either way I'm there. Do they allow big bonfires?

They used to allow VERY big bonfires, but not anymore. By spoken tradition, that's either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on whether you're pro-bonfire or pro-salamander.

-Randy

I have spent lots of time in the eucalyptus groves at Stanford, mostly surrounding Grateful Dead concerts and other illicit activities. There used to be a very TRIPPY "Prehistoric" garden. Sort of over towards Stanford Shopping Center. Any sightings of this lately.

I used to go to those bon fire dealies in the middle of a drained Lake Log. Come to think of it... one of the last times i went (1989) it was a giant BURNING MAN. Any chance that this was a precursor to the festival?

I've got a lot of questions with no answers.

Oh my goodness, thank you so much Humu!

What a cool place to visit, and you can touch the tikis!(I'm a hands-on type of gal)