The New Zealand Maori Arts & Crafts Institute at Te Puia, an educational facility and tourist attraction in Roturoa, New Zealand, has been teaching the ancient art of Maori carving since 1967.

Twelve full time students study for three years at the school, under the guidance of past graduates, including master carver Clive Fugil, who attended the school’s opening session. Visitors to Te Puia can tour the school and talk to the carvers.

The students’ work is also often available for sale.

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Thaibamboo creates and sells beautifully-carved bamboo and hardwood tiki vases, lights, sings and posts in Thailand. Pictured here is one of their custom lights — made from hollowed bamboo, it’s base is carved with a tiki and the top is wired for an incandescent bulb. Their half-round tiki vases look particularly nice too.

Thaibamboo’s downloadable catalog shows many more (and better, in my opinion) designs than the website.

Link to website | Link to catalog

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Paul Gephart makes fantastic handcrafted reproductions of ancient Hawaiian weapons out of wood, shark’s teeth, swordfish bills, and stone. These are the real deal – scary as hell looking and incredibly dangerous (you must be 21 in order to purchase), but also beautiful in their construction and finish.

Paul came to Hawaii in 1969 after fighting in Vietnam. He married a local girl, had five kids, and 37-years later they are still going strong! The couple have a shop on the big island, north of Hilo, but also sell their handmade wares online, which also include jewelry, bowls, and kitchen utensils.

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Sadly, the Hale Tiki bar in Augusta, Georgia closed in 2005. The place was wonderful recreation of tiki bars past, with fabrication done by the top names in the tiki construction scene (including Bamboo Ben, Al Evans, Basement Kahuna, and Swanky).

Now, the owner is selling off what’s left of the decorations to help recoup the costs. There are many pieces of tribal art from Papua New Guinea, glass floats, tiki poles, and even some of the bar’s original stock of custom Tiki Farm mugs, all at reasonable prices. I ended up buying a mug.

Link to sale website | Link to photos of the bar under construction | Thanks Swanky!

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Yesterday on the drive down to see my parents, my girlfriend spotted someone selling tikis on the side of the road on the Bradenton side of the Sunshine Skyway, south of Tampa.

We pulled over and met Timothy G. Merkel, who operates under the name of Tomahawk Creations. As it turns out, he’s a very talented carver who prices his sabal palm tikis extremely reasonably. Timothy usually sells out his week’s worth of carvings on the roadside, but is thinking about getting a booth at Hukilau this October. He also takes commissions.

Needless to say, Kelly found a tiki that she couldn’t resist and are now the proud owners of our first real carved tiki.

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Since I don’t speak German (neither high nor low or anywhere in-between), I don’t know exactly what’s going on at Forbidden Paradise, but they sure to have some nice carved tikis for sale!

If google translate did its job correctly, a group of German artists were bitten by the tiki bug a couple of years ago and things took off from there.

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For those seriously interested in learning the art of tiki carving, there’s never going to be a better opportunity than Coon-Tiki, an upcoming workshop featuring three of today’s tiki carving masters.

Set in the hills of Tennessee, participants will learn from carvers Benzart, Tiki Diablo, and Basement Kahuna.

The event takes place April 1-2. Registration begins February 14.

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