Tiki Trivia

I’ve gotten messages from Myra, Merrilee, and Diana in Maui to tell me that the spelling is PuPu, not PoPo. It helps in research to spell things correctly, so I after spelling it PuPu, I did learn something new about the Tiki craze. Apparently it was started in California by a guy who changed his name to Don the Beachcomber, to match the name of his restaurants that were popular in the 1940’s and 50’s. But then here's another story...

As I read about Tiki’s origins, I realized that the common attraction then and now is, people are looking for a fantasy escape. Moving back to the warehouse has not been so easy, especially working by torchlight (heh, just kidding.) But at the same time, it’s reinvigorated my interest in the Tiki Lounge that we built in our studio several years ago. We built it after an inspiring trip to a San Francisco swing club that had a cool Polynesian bar, the kind of place that serves drinks in coconuts with little umbrellas.

When we returned home, we put together our own version of a Tiki bar / Art Lounge in a side room of the warehouse. Russ topped the bar with metal, I covered the sides and roof with bamboo from our garden, and the stools came from Target.

Oh look, we even got Austin Powers to tend bar. It was a great place to hang out, play pool and host Halloween parties. But then we got busy, and the dust accumulated, and the Tiki Lounge fell into shadows.

But now, moving back here and looking at all this stuff everyday has revived my optimism for the strange fantasy world of island life, mysterious objects, and far away places. I’ve decided to embrace the decor, and actually enhance it! As a matter of fact, when all this renovation is over, I might just move the Tiki decor up front for a more prominent place.

So far, I’ve newly acquired a fake banana tree, a retro Metal Art Desk, Hawaiian music box, coconut cleaver and assorted funky lamps. I dug the Hawaiian Hula girl and bowling trophies (my grandmother’s) out of boxes, and dusted off rocks, baskets, and Asian masks. It’s been fun! Okay, but I wouldn't go this far. For the more adventurous DIYers, here's how to make a Tiki fireplace using foam. It's even got eyes that glow.

Totally Tiki

I’ve been collecting lots of Tiki memorabilia for the Tiki office. Here’s a monkey with wire glasses. He's made out of coconuts, and has a slash on his stomach because he’s also a bank. Next to him is a girl with pigtails made out of some kind of nut. She’s also hollow and her hat lifts up -- so I think she’s meant to be a little purse.



The most fun thing so far has been filling up this Hawaiian serving tray with office supplies. It has a cute carved pineapple on the top and individual trays spin around. I thought this was called a popo platter, but can’t seem to find out for sure. Help Myra -- what’s it’ really called?

On the Move

Greetings from the Tiki Bar! We're moving our offices back into the warehouse, because of mass destruction and chaos in the front of the studio. I'll send more photos as we get settled in and the place becomes more photo-friendly...In the meantime here's a quick February One update.

The green machines have multiplied, and now we're blocking up or moving out furniture because there is still moisture in the floor and carpet. This used to be my office, now everything is spread all over the place, and I can hardly find anything, much comprehend what it is when I do see it.

Meanwhile, the heating ducts under the floor have to be cleaned because they were filled with water which also went into the furnace. This is a vaccum attached to a truck-mount system that was so loud that I couldn't hear the fire alarm when it was being tested today.

Yesterday the Perils of PaMdora show was over, so we had to find somewhere to store all that stuff. It was freezing cold and then snowing. Rebecca may be right, I must have really pissed off Mother Nature. Maybe she's mad that she wasn't in my quilted cast of characters. So definitely I'm going to put Mother Nature in my next quilt. Actually I've thinking about putting her in a professional wrestling costume. I thought of that last December when she snowed out my show opening, and apparently she's not going to let me forget this idea.

Taking down the show was real pain -- in the foot! because yesterday I dropped a heavy saucepan on my foot and think I broke something. Maybe I shouldn't be climbing on ladders until it heals, but a girl's gotta do, what a girl's gotta do.

On the bright side, those wonderful Christmas Elves that helped me before my show showed up to organize and clean, in fact Merrilee, Lettie, and Lucy helped organize photos, files, move furniture, wash towels, and cheer me up!

And for the last two days, I've been trying to find time and sanity in all this chaos to finish fourth quarter tax reports that have to be filed. At least my typewriter is still working- ha ha!

Water Damaged Photos

This is my photo-washing station. Luckily since I have LOTS of photos to wash and dry, I have great scenery for my work -- one of Russ's aluminum and plexiglass paintings that hangs in our group room as a partition to hide to all the snacks in the kitchen behind.

Every day I do another batch and lay them out on tables to dry. Last week, someone on the QA list suggested I look up how to save wet photos on the internet (thanks very much!) and I found this website. At the time, I was laying on the sofa, but this site reinforced the urgency of the situation, so I jumped back to work. I wish I had read these ideas earlier, but everything still seems to be working although it's been over a week. As suggested I did freeze one box of lower-priority photos because there's just so darn many of them, and my back is killing me!

There are too many to take to a photo shop, especially because all the shops here have been without power for a week and are behind on their other jobs. I also read another site that says that now preservatives have been washed off the photos, so they will probably fade more quickly. We have been planning to scan them when dry. Since all of these projects happened in the ancient pre-digital-camera days, it would be nice to have them on computer. But there's too many, so I'm definitely using my editing trash can.

This photo was taken before the green machines arrived. Now that they're here, the photos are drying faster but it's also a lot messier. There are cords and tubes on the floor everywhere, a lot more dust in the air, and the green machines keep blowing circuits. Yesterday the DSL was down most of the day. I was feeling a bit lonely with no email again, but it was nice to get home and read so many of your nice posts. It really cheered me up -- thanks!

Green Machines

Because there was so much water released in the offices by the broken sprinkler system (first it rained, then it flooded), the whole place has to be dried out to prevent mildew. So now there are about forty noisey green machines --high-powered fans and dehumidifiers -- running night and day. It's a little like trying to work inside a windstorm, so it seems ironic that we have a whirlwind painted on the wall of what used to be our conference room.

This is ground zero, where it all started, but now the custom desk and carpet are removed. Nice of the de-humidification company to bring decor-matching equipment.

Not only all carpet has to be removed, also all the ceilings and (wah) our beautiful tile floors. I think the hand-glazed walls may be the only thing safe from total replacement.

This was my office, peacefully drying out slides and papers. That was before they torn out the ceiling and the green machines blew papers all over the place.

My studio in the back of the warehouse fared pretty well, except water from the flood crept under the doors and into the carpet. It wicked across the room, spoiling lots of things I hide under the table and into the flannel on all my pin boards. So we've moved those down to dry.

What about all my fabrics, you may ask? All okay, except that I had them packed so tightly on the shelves, that just to be safe and prevent any potential mildew problems, I've moved them off the shelves so the de-humidifiers can circulate air around them. Tomorrow we'll move more green machines back here. Some really nice art books are drying on the table, and Madalaine waits patiently for all this to be over.

p.s. You may have noticed I lost the template for PaMdora's Box. Someday I'll try to fix, but not now, I'm trying to fix too many other things right now!

From Bad to Worse

Another day breaks in the crystal forest. Meanwhile, news from the inside isn't good...

Hey kids, don't try this at home!

Even though we've been running generators around the clock to keep things above freezing, the 4 degree weather for two nights in a row with no power got us. The fire sprinkler system in the ceiling at the studio frozen and exploded when the power came back on Wednesday night, sending thousands of gallons of high-pressure water everywhere. Luckily a City Utilities worker saw water pouring out of the front door, and was able to turn the water off at the main.

The offices and front warehouse were flooded with six to eight inches of water so everything on bottom shelves and in all my files drawers is soaked. The worst place the water exploded was right in the middle of our photo and slide room. See that black hole where the light is falling down? That used to be the ceiling.

There's nothing like opening drawers and seeing a lifetime of slides floating in water, not to mention all the family and wedding photos albums I was storing in that room. And camera and video equipment. So now we're working around the clock to control the damage. This is the photo and slide triage room.

VOTE in the FiberArts studio competition

Yay, I'm a finalist in the FiberArts Magazine studio contest! I'm not sure why I entered, except that the fact that the prizes are mysteriously not named added a little intrique to the whole thing. It about killed me to enter, because the deadline to submit photos and written information was the same day that my show opened on December first.

But I had to take some photos anyway of my studio right before the show, because I figured it would never look better than when it was full to the gills with work in progress. Except of course, I had to clean it up.....yikes!!!

The sad part is I don't think I entered my best photos. Silly me, I had this crazy idea that I would make another, probably illegal entry from PaMdora, not really to cheat --- but because I thought it would be funny if she entered the mock-studio installation at the Pool Art Center Gallery. Unfortunely, it proved to be too much for me, and I never got the joke studio submitted. I know you think I've been slacking off in the art department, but since the opening of that show, I've hard at work on a re-vamp of my website which will include a photo tour of that installation.

In the meantime, enjoy a visit to FiberArt Magazine's website. You can read stuff I wrote about my studio. There are also 43 other artist studios on display, and you can VOTE here for the winners (hint, hint, I've been selected for the Best Stash category :)!