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Discussion on the "objectives" of tiki art� |
squid
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Sep 30, 2002
Posts: 1462 |  Posted: 2009-06-24 6:36 pm Permalink
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tyger jymmy
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Apr 14, 2003
Posts: 554
From: califorina
| Posted: 2009-06-24 7:01 pm Permalink
very kewl dude need a stowaway squirrel .
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Tiki Shark Art
Grand Member (6 years) 
Joined: Aug 31, 2006
Posts: 2821
From: The volcanic Big Island of Hawaii
| Posted: 2009-06-24 7:19 pm Permalink
We have made "Tiki" better.
Screw being culturally sensitive to old Hawaiian religion. I love Hawaiian culture, but the old "Tiki" religion was not all hula and surfing. It was a reign of terror.
Do I need to remind the tiki tribe that the old Hawaiian religion was not a good thing? It is referred to as the "Kapu" system. It was an ever increasing number of religious "laws", called Kapus, that grew with each generation of Ali'i and priests. It got so complex that each village had to have one man to keep track of the ever growing number of Kapus and warn everyone not to break them.
It was Kapu for men and women to eat together. It was Kapu for a woman to eat a banana. It was Kapu to, even accidentally, step onto the shadow of a member of the royal family. AND....there was only one punishment in the Kapu system: death.
Any relegion that enforced the death penalty for eating bananas, (I think women should be encouraged to eat bananas myself, but I'm getting off track) cannot be a good thing.
And, then there was the human sacrifice.
The Kapu system was officially broken not by American missionaries, but by a member of the Royal Hawaiian house hold- by Queen Ka'ahumanu, favorite wife of King Kemehameha. After King Kemehameha died, she was not about to loose all her power and go back to the way things were before she was the late king's favorite wife. She had the new king, King Liholiho, (son of King Kemehameha by another wife) sit with her and eat a formal meal.
She broke the Kapu system. Hawaiian people ran to the temples and pulled down the tikis and burned them. Back then, the tiki represented a very cruel and oppressive religious system.
Queen Keopuolani (Liholiho's actual mother) is known for saying "Our gods have done us no good, they are cruel."
This all happened before the first official missionary showed up. Europeans were living on the big island, but no European religion was being forced on anyone ... yet. Likely, the Hawaiian people saw the europeans living with out following the opressive Kapus, and figured out something was wrong with the whole "tiki worship thing".
Now-a-days, Tiki represents fun, drinking rum, hula, surfing, and going on vacation to the great state of Hawaii! All the hula with out all the killing! Yipee!
Mo' better I say!
[ This Message was edited by: Tiki Shark Art 2009-06-24 19:21 ]
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squid
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Sep 30, 2002
Posts: 1462 | Posted: 2009-06-24 8:14 pm Permalink
More rum, less killing.
Tastes great, less filling.
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palapala
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Nov 15, 2006
Posts: 240
From: Hale'a'Kenmore, Wash
| Posted: 2009-06-25 09:29 am Permalink
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!
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little lost tiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 12, 2006
Posts: 7463
From: Orange,CA-right near the Circle!
| Posted: 2009-06-25 09:40 am Permalink
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
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palapala
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Nov 15, 2006
Posts: 240
From: Hale'a'Kenmore, Wash
| Posted: 2009-06-25 10:10 am Permalink
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!)
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little lost tiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 12, 2006
Posts: 7463
From: Orange,CA-right near the Circle!
| Posted: 2009-06-25 10:16 am Permalink
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...
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geedavee
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Mar 22, 2007
Posts: 191
From: South Pasadena, CA
| Posted: 2009-06-25 10:46 am Permalink
The revolution of tiki art has begun.
This is intended as humor so don't get all Sarah Palin on me.
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palapala
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Nov 15, 2006
Posts: 240
From: Hale'a'Kenmore, Wash
| Posted: 2009-06-25 10:48 am Permalink
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!
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[ This Message was edited by: palapala 2009-06-25 10:53 ]
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little lost tiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 12, 2006
Posts: 7463
From: Orange,CA-right near the Circle!
| Posted: 2009-06-25 11:08 am Permalink
Quote:
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On 2009-06-25 10:48, palapala wrote:
If I see a weeping Tiki, It better be crying over a split Mai-Tai!
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How about a Remorseful Cannibal?
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palapala
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Nov 15, 2006
Posts: 240
From: Hale'a'Kenmore, Wash
| Posted: 2009-06-25 1:08 pm Permalink
remorseful?!!
Are you sure that he's not just really sad there are'nt any leftovers?
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little lost tiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 12, 2006
Posts: 7463
From: Orange,CA-right near the Circle!
| Posted: 2009-06-25 1:15 pm Permalink
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...
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Clarita
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Sep 26, 2006
Posts: 1234
From: BA Arg
| Posted: 2009-06-25 1:32 pm Permalink
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...
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[ This Message was edited by: Clarita 2009-06-25 15:38 ]
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little lost tiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 12, 2006
Posts: 7463
From: Orange,CA-right near the Circle!
| Posted: 2009-06-25 1:56 pm Permalink
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!
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