Keeper of the Oral Tradition

"He poked the coals with a stick to keep them from going out. The old man sat thinking. He lived for ancient times and was firmly fettered to them. He worshiped his forefathers and their deeds in an unbroken line back to the time of the gods. And he looked forward to being reunited with them. Old Tei Tetua was the sole survivor of all the extinct tribes on the east coast of Fatu Hiva. How old he was he did not know, but his wrinkled, bark-brown, leathery skin looked as if it had been dried in sun and wind for a hundred years. He was one of the few on these islands that still remembered and believed in his father's and his grandfather's legendary stories of the great Polynesian chief-god Tiki, son of the sun".     -  Exerpt from the book KON TIKI.

I call this carving Tetahi Ma'te.  He is the keeper of the oral tradition.

The Remote Beaches of Padre Island

“We need the tonic of wildness... that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.”   -

Henry David Thoreau

Kon-tiki: the band

Here is a digital painting of that wigged-out jazz combo, the Kon-tikis. These paintings are just something creative I do to pass time when it's uncomfortable outdoors.

Marquesas Island Tiki

Here is my carving inspired by the art of Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands.