Mark Ferdinand - Every Tiki has a Spirit

EVERY TIKI HAS A SPIRIT

B y

Mark Ferdinand

Copyright 2018 by Mark Ferdinand

markferdinandbooks@gmail.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

Mark Ferdinand is the author of

Fortune on the Spectrum

Youre Gonna Get Bit!

and

The Autistic Prankster

Tikis are never finished, only abandoned

-Greg Brady?

Author standing by his work

The Quest Begins

I have always been a person with hobbies. Correction, I have always been a person with too many hobbies. Many interests have come and gone during the course of my life. I get fixated on some endeavor and want to know all about it. Often the interest fades or something new comes along.

It is somewhat surprising then that the hobby of carving tikis seems to have stuck with me for a while. Although I have always had a comfort with creative pursuits and art, most of my creations and attempts at different outlets were one-time projects. One activity that I had next to zero experience with was wood carving.

I believe that it was on my fifteenth birthday that my mother bought me a beginners wood carving set. It was a quality set that had all the chisels to get a young man started in the hobby quite adequately. I lived in Colorado and made frequent visits to the forest so finding a piece of wood to carve was never a setback to getting started.

No, the problem was with my numerous other interests and distractions of being a young man. So the chisels would sit in their original box in pristine condition.

They sat in this box through my teenage years. They sat in my parents home when I went to college. I then packed them into another box where they sat in Southern California where I lived for twelve years. They then sat in yet another box after a move to Padre Island off the Texas coast. This carving set went unused and unblemished for no less than twenty eight years.

I was in my back yard on an island which sits in a 9B growing zone. I was engaged in, yes, my latest hobby, tropical gardening. I had just planted a new palm tree and was admiring my developing garden. I was focused on tropical plants, trying to mimic the look and feel of Hawaii as best as the local climate would allow.

Here we cannot grow coconut trees, at least not for long. They are not quite tough enough to withstand the rare, but quite possible frost that may or may not come during winter. We can, however, enjoy many other palms and plants from tropical regions.

I began to think that the garden was missing something. Some type of ornament suitable for a tropical setting. This is when the thought occurred to me that a giant tiki carving, maybe one as tall as a person, would add a fantastic look to the yard when nestled among the palms, ti plants, and hibiscus flowers.

It was not many years earlier that I lived in Southern California. I recalled that the Home Depot there used to sell tiki carvings of a sort in the garden section. This should be easy then, I shall simply go to the local outlet here and pick one up!

As it turns out, inventory varies between locations, and offerings may come and go. No tikis were to be found there or anywhere else in my area. Were the hell was I going to find a five foot tiki for my yard?

It was at this time that I had a recollection of once owning a wood carvers set. Maybe I still had it somewhere, packed up in a box deep in the bowels of my garage.

If I could find this set, maybe I could take a stab at making a small tiki. Maybe it would look halfway decent. If something like that were to happen, maybe I could make a second attempt on a large log and set it in my yard. Later, if someone asked, I could brag that I made it myself. Maybe it would not look as nice as the work of a professional tiki carver, but not bad for a homemade attempt.

I told myself that if I could find the old box of chisels without having to tear the garage apart, then that would be the deciding factor in giving this a try. I believe it was the third drawer that I pulled and peeked into that revealed the carving set box in plain view. I removed the box lid and each chisel was there, unblemished, shiny, waiting.

The First One - The Worst One

Im not sure what would make a person feel that they had any sort of a talent, ability or any other offering after creating such a monstrosity. I, however, propped this piece up, gazed at it proudly, and proclaimed I am onto something here!

Maybe it was the pathetically sunken eyes, the two globs claiming to be fists, or the total disregard toward depth or detail. Maybe it was the look it had of a toothless ninety-year-old man. Possibly it was my fine stain job worthy of a master craftsman. Whatever it was that spoke to me, it must have said- Some sucker would pay money for these.

In the days before us all, all of this land and all of this earth was covered with water. Water that was clear. Water that man could drink. All of this earth was not as you see, all of its contents nonexistent. Nothing on earth but water.

D epth!

I realized what I neglected to provide in my first attempt. Holding back from gouging deeply into the wood will never yield any kind of interest or obvious resemblance to anything appealing to the human eye.

This is the next attempt after coming to this realization. A marked improvement, but still with a ridiculous looking mouth, with barely detectable lips. A nose devoid of detail. Fancy stain job though!

I ended up putting this guy on eBay, and it sold! Of course, as a novice eBay seller, I ended up paying way too much shipping out of pocket, causing me only to make a few dollars profit. A lesson learned but a boost to my ego that someone purchased a piece of art that I had made.

The water began to recede, soon to almost vanish. As the water vanished it revealed grasses and plants that sought to fill the land. Some, over many, many moons became trees.