Andy Chase

As soon as I crossed the threshold, I began to feel a curious burning sensation coming from my back pocket.This past Sunday I took the Metro from Universal City down to Hollywood, to checkout the Shag exhibit at the La Luz de Jesus gallery.

I had never been to the gallery, so I wasn’t sure what to expect; their web site has timely information about current and upcoming shows, but the “Store” section wasn’t working last time I checked and I didn’t look at the “Virtual Tour” link… so I was thinking there would be a small gallery housing the exhibit and a smaller selection of other works, and maybe a bookshelf with a few things for sale by the door; Shag books, Shag t-shirts, whatever.

Holy Crap, La Luz de Jesus was right there near the corner of Hollywood and Vermont all those times I went down to volunteer at Hollyhock House and the Ennis-Brown House? What have I been missing?

Upon entering, you can’t even really see the gallery proper; much of the building is occupied by a sprawling and eclectic bookstore/gift/pop culture store.

In a nutshell, this store is Archie McPhee meets every book on my Amazon wishlist, plus more cool crap than I ever imagined could be found for sale under one roof. As soon as I crossed the threshold, I began to feel a curious burning sensation coming from my back pocket. I soon realized this was caused by my wallet slowly smoldering its way through my jeans.

It’s one thing to poke around on a website and look at all the things you’d like to buy when the threat of immediate gratification is removed and shipping charges added, but it’s quite another when all those cool things you’ve looked at online are all there right in front of you, ready to be carried to the cash register and then home. That Amazon wishlist comment was no joke; they really do have pretty much all of the art/design/pop culture books I’ve been adding to my list for the past couple of years, and even some of the lounge CDs. Add all the tiki paraphernalia (more than I’ve ever seen in one place - not that I’ve spent a lot of time looking - yet), action figures, and stupid toys, and you’ve got a store that feels like it was stocked exclusively for this late-20’s post-pop wanna-be geek.

I was proud of myself - I managed to leave only about $5.00 poorer than when I went in. $1.00 got me an oversized postcard of one of the Shag paintings in the exhibit, and $3.95 got me the most recent copy of Tiki News, which to date I only knew as a website; I didn’t know they published the occaisional ‘Zine as well.

If it sounds like I’m tiki-fixated, it’s because I am, and I think it’s going to get worse before it gets better. It started when I began to get more familiar with Shag’s work last fall, and then some idle web surfing turned up a surprising volume of pages and sites devoted to all things tiki.

My first visit to the Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland last November didn’t help, either. (I’d been to Disneyland numerous times before, but the Enchanted Tiki Room is one of those attractions that everyone else never wants to do.)

Now that I’ve found a store which could pretty much turn our already retro-flavored apartment into a full-blown tiki paradise, there’s no telling where this could lead. Just last night I discovered that there’s a place in Ventura called Tiki Trader, and of course I still need to visit Oceanic Arts in Whittier.

This is also partly a result of my determination to make the most of the time we spend living in SoCal; I’m not likely to find as much of this stuff in New England.

My wife gave me an excellent Shag t-shirt for Christmas along with another 1950's collecting guide/photo reference, and suddenly I'm all interested in design and even digital illustration again.Not much to write for tonight. I Put up another good photo of the Safari Inn sign from yesterday.

I spent most of the evening diddling around with Painter 6. After 5 comfortable years spent using Adobe (and to a lesser extent, Macromedia) interfaces, Painter is positively confounding.

Plus there's the added strangeness of not having actually painted since high school. I got pretty good with acrylics, but didn't stick with them when I pursued animation in college. So it's like learning to paint again through the layer of abstraction added by drawing on a tablet and seeing the results on the screen; the lack of immediate, physical feedback is disconcerting. But I shall persevere.

Also, go visit Shag's site. Go there right now. No finishing up your e-mail or reading The Onion, just go. And if you're going to be in L.A. next month, go see his exhibition, Bottomless Cocktail, at the La Luz De Jesus gallery in Hollywood. I missed the Night of the Tiki exhibition last fall, so I'm looking forward to this one.

I first came across Shag in an article in Juxtapoz a few months ago. I know I'd seen his stuff somewhere before that, but that was the first time I learned that there was an illustrator who specializes pretty much exclusively in exactly the kind of retro-tiki-lounge stuff I like. The Night of the Tiki book has been on my Amazon Wishlist ever since I saw that article, but my wife gave me an excellent Shag t-shirt for Christmas along with another 1950's collecting guide/photo reference, and suddenly I'm all interested in design and even digital illustration again.

Things have come a long way since I used to painstakingly draw 32 color, 320x240 scenes on my Amiga 500 in DeluxePaint IV and although I'm way out of practice, I know I'll be able to blow my older stuff away in time. That boxy old mouse has nothing on a pressure-sensitive tablet.