"Urban Tiki" / Ocean Beach, San Francisco
Acrylic on canvas, 2008
From a different time, in another era, on a stretch of coastline along the Great Highway of California 101 at San Francisco land's end, stand these iconic telescopes overlooking Ocean Beach near Kelly's Cove, a surf spot below the Cliff House. Inspired by Mo'ai as it is known in Rapa Nui, Ki`'i in ancient Hawaiian culture and "tiki" in the land of the clueless tourists frequenting the islands of Polynesia after World War II, these "Urban Tiki" watched silently over the beach goers since the mid 2oth Century through the psychedelic 60's, weathered by the cold Northwestern Pacific storm and salt spray from decades past. As the rusted veneer covers the underlying steel post painted a deep green glistening with the patina of a classic bronze
sculpture, one often wonders if these are works of art or useless junk from the industrial age
awaiting its final days from the stage of the Great Seawall and its salty audience.
