Tonga Hut BOWL-O-RAMA 2 Art Show & Parking Lot Sale Sunday, June 30! The Zip Guns! Tiki Bowls! Fun!

Please join us Sunday June 30th @NOON for our next Parking Lot Sale and Art Show: BOWL-O-RAMA 2
Art Show Theme: TIKI BOWLS! We're revisiting an old topic with some AMAZING new artists including:
Tiki tOny
MP
Ocea Otica
Eric October
GROG
Johnnie Velour
Wendy Cevola
Outl1n3 Island
Jungle Modern Ceramics
Carlos Dye
Woody Miller
Hip Tiki Arcade
MadDog Mike
Heather Welch
Tiki Tiki Monster

The bar opens and vending begins at NOON
Tonga Tom will be spinning tunes outside.
Durango's Tacos will be there too!
The ZIP GUNS go on at 6pm
"Savage Instro-Mental Rock 'N Roll!"

Vendors for the parking lot sale include:
Mahalo Tiki
Grider Co.
Tiki tOny
Eric October
Clee Sobieski
Ron Monster
Jungle Modern Ceramics
Tee-Key Togs
Azteeki Arcade
Spring Candles
Islanders Trading
Thom Foolery
8-Bit Spock
Lynn Mcguire
Black Sands Tiki
Stilettoed Devil
Tiki Tiki Monster
TikiSwag
Black Cat Atomic Treasures

VENDING SPACES ARE FILLED.

For art show placement please PM me here, or email [email protected]

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http://ericoctober.com

[ Edited by: tobunga 2019-05-14 22:00 ]

The male bartender was a dick at Tonga huts holiday party. And what’s with the super limited drink menu?

MOAR BOWLS!

Glad to see a sequel to the first Bowl-R-Rama. See ya at the Hut.

kevin

Looks like GROG gonna have to bust out some mud to make a bowl or two. GROG' clay pretty dry. Gonna have to soak it a bit to get it workable. GROG have a couple of ideas for some Volcano bowls that GROG came up with years ago, but never got around to making them. Hiphipahula and Trader Tom Morgan even came up with drink recipes to go with the bowls. GROG might only have enough time to get one handmade bowl done, though.

GROG trying to find inspiration for what kind of bowl GROG should make for the Bowl-O-Rama2 art show. Maybe something like this:

[ Edited by: grog 2019-04-21 10:38 ]

Eric October encouraged the artists to post progress pics, so here GROG' crap being made:

GROG work area in kitchen, just outside of Tiki Room.

Shelves of crap in-progress or waiting to be fixed. JAVA BOBs have been there forever.

GROG dig out bowls GROG already made or in-progress. The ugly white Tiki Bob bowl with the pink face was for one of the Tonga Hut art shows way back
when GROG ran the art showsat the Tonga Hut.The greenish Moai bowl was a happy mistake putting a different glaze over a previous glaze. The small Tiki
Bob bowl is for Mymotiki and needs glaze touch ups.The greenware bowl in the middle was an experiment GROG start years ago but never finished, so GROG
decide to use it to get started. GROG decide to go in a different direction than it was originally intended.

Back in 1,000,000 B.C. when GROG last made a mold, GROG made too much plaster for the mold, and GROG (being a cheap bastard) not want to waste plaster. So, GROG grab a Tiki light
and use the leftover plaster to make a mold of the cheap tiki light. GROG pour a few tikis and attach them to a bowl, and then it sat there untouched for thousands of years.

So, this how it's looking right now on it's way to becoming a Volcano Scorpion bowl.

[ Edited by: GROG 2019-04-23 00:48 ]

Swizzle see moai swizzle ask GROG for about 7/8 years ago.

Bowl is looking good.

Go, GROG, go!

GROG!!!

I better get to work. What terrific photos GROG. I've been missing your posts. Wendy

GROG! Good to see you hanging out here! I have too many project on the fire but I want to try to get something done for the Bowl Show. I was working on a shrunken head and it inspirted me.

I want to make an Intrepid Jungle Explorer Bowl dedicated to those brave men who charted the unknown jungles of Papua New Guinea only to "get small", and not in the Steve Martin style :o Quick concept photo but three shrunken explorer heads (without pony tails) form the base for a bowl made from one of their pith helmets.

Go, Mike, go!

Thanks for the comments everybody. MDM, I really like your concept. Looking forward to seeing it finished.

I probably won't get around to working on mine again until either Saturday, or Sunday.

WOW!!!

Great stuff GROG & MadDog!

Wendy! Would love to see how your piece is coming along!

Hope you can complete in time! Speaking of which... I've just started one of at least two bowls I hope to have finished for the event.

Here's a photo of what I've created so far. It may not look like a bowl yet, but it's just the first part of... umm... quick count... aww crap... five parts to complete the piece.

I'll post more in progress shots as the pieces develop!

Mahalo!
Eric

That's a lot of detail Eric!!! :o

I built Baldwin yesterday, one of the three intrepid explorers. Now to hold him in his wet state until he's joined by his other two explorers.

Yay. Fun stuff Tobunga and MDM. Looking forward to seeing the progress. GROG work on GROG' bowl yesterday.

Had another side that needed clay rocks. GROG cheap bastard and not like wasting anything. So when GROG had extra clay left over from previous projects, GROG kept the
clay and they became rocks which GROG attach to the bowl with paper clay and lots off water spritzing. If anything was ever going to blow up in GROG' kiln, it would be this bowl.

Adding rocks attached by paper clay, and then the fun part---making lava flows with slip. It's tricky, because it needs to be the right consistency to get nice looking flows.

May have overdone it with the lava, but we'll see. Now to let it dry and hope it doesn't crack.

WOW!!! Interesting technique, that looks sweet Ernie! Are the edges going to be fragile after when you fire it when you set the bowl down on the table?

The sides shouldn't be too fragile. There's a layer of paper clay under the bowl that GROG attach to the bottom of the bowl before GROG start adding clay rocks. GROG also cut into the circumference of the bowl, so it's not going to be as wide as it is in the last photos. You are the one that told GROG about paper clay, and the stuff awesome---so, thanks MDM. Looking fwd to seeing how your bowl progresses.

Looking good

Now GROG letting it sit and dry slowly so it doesn't crack too much. Cracks are OK in the rocky areas, but not in the lava flows.

Wow!

And to think I learned about paper clay from GROG! So amazing how info gets passed along from artist to artist! Love it!

Here's an updated progress shot of my bowl with the hut I previously posted in situ... the element in the middle will become the fire chamber, and in the foreground is another part that's in the works.

I shot this photo on April 28th... the day the Kon Tiki Expedition set sail from Peru. We're getting ready to watch the documentary... that's what's in the background!

Can't wait to see everybody's progress!

---

http://ericoctober.com

[ Edited by: tobunga 2019-05-07 23:08 ]

You're such a tease. Looking good so far Tobunga. GROG' bowl getting some good sized cracks. Letting it dry too fast. Trash bagging it better to slow cracks.

Since all GROG can do right now is wait for "Volcano" bowl to dry, GROG decide to do a couple of other bowls in the meantime since GROG
need more stuff to fire for the bisque fire. GROG have a bunch of Salt and Pepper Moais GROG had poured that were too thick for S&P shakers.
Most Scorpion bowls have three Tikis around them, so GROG decide to put a crapload under the bowl supporting the bowl.

GROG has made some Wangaroan Bowls with the Tiki in the middle of the bowl, but now it time to make a traditional 3 tiki Scorpion bowl with
Wangaroan tiki. If GROG ambitious, GROG may pour a third bowl, and trim the wang to the traditional size (or chop it off completely) for a
traditional Tangaroan Scorpion bowl.

Yesterday's progress for creating the Wangaroan Bowl.
2 molds for the the tiki. One for the body and one for the base. 1 piece mold for the bowl.

Pour the bowl. Dump the bowl.

Remove the Wangaroan from the mold.

Cut off excess wang. Pour two more Wangaroans and attach their bases.

This will be how it looks altogether. (Not attached yet). Today---(1)clean the seam lines off. (2)Carve detail and wood grain. (3) Attach Tikis to the bowl.

---

GROG miss Tiki-Kate

[ Edited by: GROG 2019-05-05 22:39 ]

Wow men these are impressive bowls that you have been sharing.

I am entering a mermaid bowl for the show. I cast one and

then I added all the missing parts. I want it to sell so I enhanced her bosom.

I cleaned up a good sized bowl to hold her and

Then I attached her in the center.

More soon, Wendy

GROG thought you were going to do a one-legged cat bowl. :D Fun stuff Wendy.

Today GROG clean, add wood detail and attach Wangaroan Tikis to the bowl. GROG add better wood detail later when it's drier.

GROG clean little Moais for the other bowl.

And GROG pour bowl to attach to the Moais.

Here is the rest of the Mermaid bowl story.

Once the bowl had been drying for a week I

decided to carve around the bowl.

Weeks later the bowl was dry, sanded and bisque fired. Now it was time to glaze it. I emptied all these

half filled jars of glaze to fill the bowl. After 30 seconds I

poured it out and then cleaned off where the glaze was in an undesired area.

I later touched up around the girl and the upper rim of the bowl because the crystals had moved down earlier. I wanted it uniform.

Once the blue glaze was dry I began to glaze the bowl and

then the girl. She was done with 3 layers of a Duncan CN glaze.

The last was her hair. I go very slowly so that I don't drip this black glaze on her body. I actually meant to do the hair first which is safer but I forgot. Once the bowl and mermaid were 100% dry it was added to a load and fired.

This is one reason I'm not making these any longer. There is always a glaze skip someplace no matter how hard I try and these bowls take up too much space in the kiln. So I scrubbed this area and glazed it again and she fired again.

After her second firing I picked up the bowl using the mermaid as a handle. Woops! She came loose.

Oh well Nothing was broken I just needed to glue her in place with glaze and to fire her again. The glaze will melt and all will be good.

Once she was pressed into place I cleaned up the excess glaze. She went back into the kiln with the next load.

When she came out of the third firing all was well. I could also pick her up using the mermaid as a handle. The connection was strong.

All the glaze skips were gone and now all I needed to do was to use enamel to paint on her face.

24 hours after painting her face she was baked in the home oven to "set" the enamel.

When taking photos I like to also take a photo of the bottom. This is when I saw a very long crack.

Once I saw it I then could feel it. The bowl is a total loss.

It could be that I trapped air when I pressed the mermaid into place with the brown glaze. That would make it crack. Or there was some other stress. I do not know if it cracked after the 2nd or 3rd firing. After the first I glazed the bottom and would have seen it then. It's a mystery. It's been years since I had something crack so I'm fine, only a little bit sad.

This is what I am putting in the Bowlarama show. Good thing it doesn't have to be for sale. Cheers, Wendy

PS wish Dan luck that his kidney stone cracks up tomorrow, he is having an ultrasound procedure in out patient surgery, some crack ups are good

---

This is a great thread.

Sorry your bowl cracked. GROG' volcano is probably going to explode. It's OK you're not going to sell it. Dan was probably going to take it anyways. Good luck with the kidney stones, Dan.

[ Edited by: GROG 2019-05-07 00:47 ]

Hamo I'm enjoying this thread too.

GROG yep it was a big loss. But health is everything and I'd break all that I make if it meant Dan and I stayed healthy. Modern medicine sure gave you a better life. I'm so happy you are back to work on clay.

Wendy

Wendy! So sad your bowl didn't make it!

But please send to the show... maybe reconsider making available to purchase? It looks amazing!

And GROG! Regarding one of your previous posts:

"If anything was ever going to blow up in GROG' kiln, it would be this bowl."

Even though this is the most hilarious prophecy I've ever heard, please... no more ceramic catastrophes! Fingers crossed it all works out!

Speaking of which... sculpting on my first bowl is done! I was going to post an update with photos, but two of the pieces ended up not fitting together quite right, so I had to perform some modifications... and when the clay dried out again... AHHH! There were a few hairline cracks that needed to be addressed! I think I've beaten them into submission (not literally), but now I'm set back a couple days, so no photos yet!

Here are photos of my bowl so far.

It's based on the menu for Zombie Village in Oakland.

Recently, I was leafing through Sven's Book of Tiki and was once again captivated by the image. I was looking at the fire pit in the center of the illustration and the thought occurred to me that it would make a great fire chamber... in a bowl!!!

I was working out the logistics of translating the scene on the menu to a three dimensional, functional piece and I realized the genie in the background would have to be scaled down considerably to make the whole thing viable. I didn't want him to be diminished in size and uniqueness, so I had the crazy idea to make the genie a separate mug that rests in a holder on the back of the bowl. How nutty is that?

Sculpting is complete, cracks have been repaired, and now on to underglazing!

Over THE top AWESOME!!

On 2019-05-11 00:21, GROG wrote:
Over THE top AWESOME!!

I concur. This thread just gets better and better.

"Here are photos of my bowl so far.
It's based on the menu for Zombie Village in Oakland."

Wow!
Very cool, great work.

Yes. Tobunga hs raised the bar----the Tiki Bar. :D

Tobunga I kneel before you. That is just stupendous! Wendy

Wowsers! That is absolutely epic.

GROG did several hours more work on the bowls, but it doesn't look much different.

Added more wood detailing and fortified the attachment area between the bowl and the tikis.

Put the finshing touches on the Moais. Broke one while GROG was cleaning it, so now it's going to have one less Moai.
And put finishing cleanup touches on the bowl and made sure the lip was level. Bowl not attached yet.

Yesterday GROG check on the "Volcano" bowl. It was completely covered, so it was drying too slow.

So, GROG uncover it and let it sit out for the day, and it dried too fast, so got some big cracks.

So, now it's covered again, and let it dry slowly, and fix the cracks with some paper clay when it's dry.
It's trying to blow up BEFORE it's in the kiln.

[ Edited by: GROG 2019-05-12 17:57 ]

Hey GROG, can you encorporate the cracks into the design of the bowl? They kinda look appropriate, jut add a couple more on purpose!

BOWL ARTIST UPDATE!

A few more artists joining the bowl line up:

Heather Welch
Hip Tiki Arcade
Tiki Tiki Monster
... and all the way from Australia:
Swizzle!

This show is gonna bowl you over! (couldn't resist that bad pun!)

OH NO GROG! Good you can fix it up. I would like to see the steps. Wendy

GROG tell a funny joke and the bowl cracked up!

Actually, the bowl was still drying too slow, so GROG just uncovered it and let it crack. It's still solid. GROG can move it around and turn it upside down, it just has big-assed cracks in it. GROG not try to fix the cracks now. GROG going to fire it to see if it explodes or not (definitely gets it's own shelf all to itself). Then GROG try and fix it with paperclay and fire again. GROG figured there would be cracking, since so many of the pieces had different amounts of water, so they would dry at different speeds, but didn't expect this big of cracks. It'll be an interesting test to see if it can be salvaged.

On 2019-04-19 05:49, santa wrote:
The male bartender was a dick at Tonga huts holiday party. And what’s with the super limited drink menu?

There's only two. And one of them is never a dick. Can you describe him?

GROG I had paper clay in a plastic sack inside a brown paper bag for the past 9 years. I never figured out what to do with it so recently when I cleaned out my kiln shed I tossed it. Now I wish I'd kept it. I'm looking forward to seeing your repair and how it works out. Wendy

For GROG, Paperclay saves the day, Wendy.

GROG was just going to fire the bowl with cracks, and fix it afterwards with paperclay and refire. But, GROG decide to fix the cracks before GROG fire it, and see if, and how much it cracks or explodes once GROG does fire it. GROG was stupid and pushed too hard and broke a hole in the bowl behind a tiki, so GROG had an even bigger fix on the bowl. Didn't take a picture of that, though. This is how it looks now. GROG fire up the kiln next weekend.

Grog bowl make me thirsty!