On 2007-12-28 09:34, bigbrotiki wrote:

Most of the carvings shown in the Tiki Central threads are carved by Barney West. He also carved many large masks. While Barney's carvings were crude in looks, they had a lot of character just like Barney. We loved the old guy and had some good times with him.

Some of the figures shown are authentic primitive arts we imported from New Guinea and sold to Jack Thornton. They have mostly been repainted. We also carved hundreds over the years of the Candle Table Lamp Bases. They were finished by the Mai Kai. Under the direction of George Nakashima we carved many wood moldings and pieces for their various themed rooms.

I think some of the figures and pieces were bought by Jack during his travels. Also many figures were carved by Demitrio Chavez for Carter who sold them to the Mai Kai. OA introduced Demitrio to Carter as we did not have the funds for carvings in the early days.

Interestingly, Jack Thorton never mentioned making molds of the Tiki's.

So to sum it up----OA did not carve any large tiki's for the Mai Kai. Once we introduced Demetrio to Carter, Carter had some masks made from the New Guinea museum designs from the book Oceanic Art. When Carter moved to WestWood OA had many more patterns carved by Demetrio.

Robert H. Carter of Cargoes by Carter was perhaps the first importer of tropical decor and sold to Donn Beach and Victor Bergeron in the late 1940's. He was based in Whittier, CA and was a very small operation, selling Gift Ware as well as the basic tropical decor such as mattings, tapa cloths, and tikis's he had carved in Western Samoa.

LeRoy and I sold for him and carved 100's of Shields, Masks and Tiki Rail Posts for him to sell to restaurants. He later moved to Westwood, CA and we went full time expanding OA. He passed away during the late 1970's.

p.s.: Carter also got the job of carving the large Aku Aku stone figures for the Aku Aku at the Stardust in Las Vegas. He and Eli Hedley worked together on them along with Vince Buono.