HANGIN’ WITH THE KING OF TIKI

Jeffrey Vallance

Valley Polynesian Culture

Polynesian Pop Culture was born when U.S. servicemen returned from the South Pacific after World War II, and fueled by the mania caused by Thor Heyerdahl’s book Kon Tiki and Hawaii becoming the 50th state. In the late 50’s in our Canoga Park backyard, my father, Charles Harold Vallance, built a Polynesian-style patio planted with tropical foliage and decorated in tiki kitsch. My parents would throw tiki parties in which neighbors, decked out in Hawaiian shirts and muumuus, sloshed down tropical drinks while listening to Martin Denny. As a child, I grew up in this fake Polynesian environment, and I took it all for granted--this was reality. I recall staring closely at a Hawaiian tapa cloth design and thinking how amazingly beautiful it was. My father was very tiki. As a scoutmaster, he carved Easter Island tiki neckerchief rings for our Boy Scout uniforms. He was the partner of the famed treasure hunter Mel Fisher, and they dove for sunken wrecks off the California coast. Dad was an avid scuba diver (before there were wetsuits), and our bathtub was often filled with live lobsters and abalone waiting to be dinner. He was a member of the Sharks Underwater Adventurers club, whose goal it was to ride sharks bareback underwater. In July 1955 (the year I was born), my dad was featured riding a shark on the cover of Popular Science magazine. Dad worked as a rocket scientist at McDonnell Douglas, where his work was top secret (designing missiles for nuclear weapons, I suppose). But the one thing I was sure he helped design was the huge rocket that stood at the entrance to the original Tomorrowland sector of Disneyland.

In Search of Tiki

In 1980, I graduated with an MFA from Otis Art Institute. Although my family moved away from the Canoga Park home with the tiki patio, they kept the house and rented it out. In the early 80’s, I moved back into the house and restored the tiki patio. The bamboo, rubber tree, elephant ears and the like, had grown for 20 years, so the backyard was even more like a jungle. I started collecting tiki mugs from thrift stores and huge tiki statues from old tiki patio shops still in existence, like the Sea and Jungle. I started making drawings and paintings of tikis, inspired by growing up amidst 60’s Polynesian pop. I became interested in the actual Polynesian gods and myths. In 1983, I began a series of voyages to the South Pacific in search of the true origins and myths of Tiki.* I traveled first with Michael Ühlenkott to Hawaii, Fiji, Rarotonga and Aitutaki in the Cook Islands, and to Tahiti and Moorea in the Society Islands. In the spirit of the artists that traveled with Captain Cook on his voyages, I made sketches each day of the trip of what I saw on the various islands. Similar to an anthropologist, I drew whatever I encountered. I sketched shells, fruit, fish, geckos, discarded junk food wrappers, and rusty cans. And of course, tikis. In 1985-86, I voyaged to Polynesia, once again to Rarotonga and on to Atiu, also in the Cook Islands, then to American Samoa, Western Samoa, New Zealand, Rangairoa in the Tuamotu Archipelago, and the Kingdom of Tonga. On American Samoa, the Paramount High Chief befriended me. He asked me to stay in his village so I could illustrate books on the myths of Samoa, make travel posters, and paint tapa cloth designs. I found it ironic that I traveled to Polynesia to study original tiki designs, then ended up designing tapa cloth for Polynesians. When traveling throughout the South Seas, I often heard wild stories about the fairytale-like Kingdom of Tonga, where the last reigning monarch of Polynesia, a huge king, lived in a little gingerbread palace. So I set my course for Nuku’alofa, the capital of Tonga, the Friendly Islands.

The King of Surf

His Majesty King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV of Tonga is fascinating for a number of reasons: He is not only the last king in Polynesia (all other island groups have been colonized by foreign powers), but he established a Guinness World’s Record as the world’s fattest king. And he’s the only king that surfs! He has a special 12-foot surfboard made in Hawaii to fit his unique physical requirements. Like King Uhia of Ohonoo from Melville’s Mardi, King Taufa’ahau is often found in the curling foam. According to His Majesty, the best surfing beach in Tonga is on ‘Eueiki Island about three miles east of Tongatapu. The King rates the beach “excellent” for surfing, stating: “Although the run is shorter than Waikiki, the distance to swim to the breaking point of the waves is shorter.” As an old Tongan proverb states: “Keep your places, for the wave will break.” The saying comes from surfers waiting for the perfect wave. Hence, one should always be patient and ready for the arrival of an advantageous opportunity. The grand Tongan Millennial celebrations included the totally bitchen event, “Surf the First Wave of the Third Millennium,” organized by the Tonga Surfriders Association.

I made two trips to Tonga to have audiences with the King—the first in 1985 and the second in 2001. To prepare for my first trip, I asked the mayor of L.A., Tom Bradley, to write me a letter of introduction. The mayor did better than that—he gave me a gold embossed certificate making me an official ambassador from Los Angeles. I’d heard that the King’s physician had told His Majesty that he must lose some weight for his health’s sake. The doctor recommended swimming as a healthy exercise. The only problem was that the King was so large that he had a difficult time navigating in the water. He wanted swim fins, and not just any flippers would do, as he has truly king-sized feet. When I met with the King, I presented him with a pair of the world’s largest swim fins. The King placed his ham-sized hands in the flippers’ orifices and smiled broadly, saying, “Ah, these will fit nicely.” In Tonga, I did many portraits of the King on tapa cloth, and in woodcarving and scrimshaw. At that time, it was considered tabu to use the King’s visage, but on later trips to Tonga, I saw tapa cloth designs that were uncannily similar.

In 2000, I returned to Tonga as professor i samtidskonst (Professor in International Contemporary Art) from Umeå University, near the Arctic Circle in Swedish Lapland. I led a field trip of Swedish art students. When leaving for Tonga from Fiji, because of inclement weather we were rushed onto the last plane out. I didn’t have time to change clothes, and I was wearing black boxer shorts that I hoped nobody would recognize as underclothes. I made my triumphant return to Tonga in my underwear.

An audience was arranged with the King, this time with the help of a letter from the Governor of the District of Västerbotten, Sweden. I instructed the students to each show the King an example of their art and to present him with a special gift. The scene of the Swedish students meeting the King was unbelievable. Each of the students did a performance piece for the King. One student wore a bright orange UFO-shaped helmet on her head. Another was dressed as “Reindeer Girl” in a revealing reindeer/Playboy bunny outfit, complete with real antlers. One of the boys came in drag, crossdressing as a Lapp woman. The King had never seen such a spectacle: he was highly pleased. The students entertained the King like the ancient faka’aluma, the Tongan court jesters of old. When I stepped up to the King, it was like meeting an old friend. His Majesty said that he used the flippers so many times that they had worn out. The King had lost some weight, and I was glad that I had played a part in him becoming a healthier man. I, on the other hand, had emulated the King and had gained weight since my last visit. Indeed, I was awarded the Tongan royal title of “Honorary Noble.” Then came the presentation of the royal gift. Before I left for Tonga, my friend, artist Cameron Jamie, handed me a gift for the King. It was a pathetic tiki-shaped Tonga™ soap-on-a-rope by Amway from the 1970’s that Cameron had found at a thrift store. The soap-on-a-rope was chipped, with a filthy layer of dust adhering to the tacky surface like flocking on a Christmas tree. I considered throwing away the soap and lying to Cameron that I had given it to the King. But then I thought, heck, I will present it to the King. I put the soap in a Ziploc baggie (like a collectible), crammed it in a gift box, and gave it to the Potentate. To my surprise, the King was fascinated by the tiki soap. He loved it. Then it suddenly dawned on me—this was the moment for which I’d lived my entire life. It was Polynesian Pop Culture meeting the living embodiment of Tiki.

Issue 23 June-August 1995

Jeffrey Vallance

SANTA MONICA MUSEUM OF ART, LOS ANGELES, USA

‘The World of Jeffrey Vallance’ is a fun place to visit. You can go there without really leaving suburban American culture behind. Which isn’t to say that the readily accessible yet profoundly idiosyncratic domain inhabited by the peripatetic artist’s paintings, drawings and sculptures is anything like the bland, pre-programmed space in which artists predisposed to being social critics insist we all live. Although Vallance’s world and that of pre-packaged tourism are banal, and extend well beyond the borders of the United States, his version is unashamed of being mundane. Its quest for the extraordinary is never predicated on a denigration of the everyday. His world reflects a vision too generous and hands-on to settle for the abstract platitudes of criticality. What distinguishes Vallance’s wide-ranging works from the clichés spewed by the tourist industry - and institutional authorities - is that his version of the world is fascinating, playful and empowering, rather than standardised, compartmentalised and distant. It presumes (and demonstrates) that with the right outlook and a little creativity, anyone, anywhere, can live in a world suffused with mystery, where innumerable interconnections weave a web in which the prosaic is regularly linked to the sacred.

Vallance’s homemade souvenirs, re-created relics and wacky documentations of trips to Iceland, Tonga, the Vatican, Vienna, Samon, Mexico City and Canoga Park are a testament to the resonance of the everyday. Driven by a radically democratic impulse, they’re personal without being self-indulgently autobiographical. Two extensive projects are as significant for their exploration of a long line of Christian iconography as they are for articulating Vallance’s identity. His thoroughly, if quickly documented, recreations of the Lance of Longinus (which pierced Christ’s side after he died on the Cross), and the Veil of Veronica (on which a portrait of Jesus was printed when she wiped his face on the way to Calgary), chart a rich history interwoven with myth. At the same time, these holy relics spell out the artist’s name: run together, ‘veil’ and ‘lance’ sound suspiciously like ‘Vallance’. All of his projects insist that everything begins with individual experience. They also leave each of us free to decide for ourselves how open-ended these experiences might be. Given Vallance’s example, individuality embodies shared traits and traditions, without in any sense diminishing one’s uniqueness. As his art eliminates distinctions between the profane and the sacred, it also refuses to segregate commonness and individuality.

To Vallance’s fertile imagination, the blood-stained cardboard under a frozen, cellophane- wrapped chicken purchased at a supermarket bears a family resemblance to the Shroud of Turin, the legendary burial cloth which wrapped Christ’s body. This striking similarity took the artist to Vienna, where his research uncovered a curious link to George Washington, whose silhouette, printed in Christ’s blood, seemed to appear on the Shroud. Further study of the stains led to Vallance’s discovery of four portraits of sinister clowns. Enthralled by these multiplying connections, he then travelled to the Vatican, where he splashed cappuccino on his face in a re-enactment of the miracle that produced Christ’s image on Veronica’s Veil. The Veil’s and Lance’s place in history, and in Vallance’s imagination, continued to grow. The artist went on to suggest that since Elvis Presley was purportedly reading a paperback about the Shroud of Turin when he died, the sweat-stained scarves he often tossed to ecstatic fans must be the Shroud’s distant, but still legitimate cousins. Pushing things to a feverish pitch, Vallance even proposed that the miracle of Veronica’s Veil is not a distant, long-lost moment in history, but a living event re-enacted nightly at the ‘Batman A Go-Go’, a strip-joint in his hometown of Canoga Park, California, where dancers drape their skirts over patrons’ heads to perform the ‘Veil of Ecstasy’.

In Vallance’s world, facts are weirder than fiction, a good story counts above all else, and, with belief, meaning proliferates. His ingenuous investigations treat modern life as an unexplored territory with untapped possibilities for experiences bordering on the sacred. There’s only one requirement: these works must be experienced first hand. For viewers, this means that the world is whatever you make it. Seen through Vallance’s eyes, anyone’s surroundings constitute a magical environment in which mystery and enchantment are within arm’s reach - if you care to grab them. Even cheesy, pre-packaged components of commodified American culture possess the potential to be talismans of something wondrous. Vallance believes neither authorities or officials, nor accepts stereotypical views. In his eccentric, innocent explorations of the quotidian, he finds compelling mysteries wherever he looks. This is do-it-yourself world-making at its best.

David Pagel