Post #302253 by pablus on Fri, Apr 27, 2007 9:25 AM

In case you hadn't noticed, the quality of work on the carving forum is diminishing.
There is a reason the skilled are not posting as often.

I'm a big carver supporter. I've bought pieces off of a lot of them and many of the better ones are very real friends.
I love a lot of the work there and enjoy the community. I even like a few of the pieces I've seen of teaKey's. He's got a bit of skill. So do many of the elementary and intermediate carvers, artists, musicians, poets, seamstresses, etc.

But an unending supply of aloha for a weak signal to noise ratio makes the board weak. Surely you can see that. I'm not suggesting that people only post masterpieces worthy of a museum, although that would be cool; I'm suggesting that they humbly accept guidance from those that are better. In this particular thread, here is a guy with intermediate skills who is bristling under a very calm post from a master carver. Yes, a master carver and artist. There are levels of skill here that some of the hackier carvers are never going to achieve unless they humble themselves and not adopt the attitude of "this is good because I made it." Take some freaking criticism from those who are masters.

That Gman post that someone referenced (and by the way, I didn't say gman was bad or lesser skilled, I merely said that BK is a master carver) was a battle of "hey, you can't talk that way to me, I've got 3409 posts and have carved 5934 tikis, blah blah blah..." in response to some things that were bothering BK, a master carver. That argument was fine. They got through it although the drawing up of sides was a bit melodramatic.

Now Gman is a fine carver. He obviously puts a lot of time and effort into his pieces. But that skirmish that was referenced was all about a wounded ego. This place, Tiki Central, I mean, has become a tip-toeing around people's egos kind of a place and that makes the experience here suffer.

Certainly there are allowances for beginners to post their work. I'm not suggesting otherwise. I truly enjoyed Swanky's first ugly piece of junk that he carved. It was awful. He knew it. Everybody knew it. So what did he do? Pout and run away or demand to be placed on the same tier as Ben? Heck no, he threw a party with some of the best carvers and upped his game. He still isn't this great carver, but he also isn't filling up the carver forum with 67 pictures of his latest.

Don't get all feisty like I'm intruding on the carver forum. I've seen your posts - I like them.
I love it there on the carver forum. To me it's the soul of Tiki Central. I read stories to those folks with lots of mana and aloha, you included. I'm wanting this whole community to be a place of excellence, instead of being filled with second rate practice tikis, music, sewing, poetry, etc. I've made many great, life long friends here and feel like there are plenty more to be made. Except for Flounder, who I live in terror of.

If King Kukulele or Iuka Grogg or Mr. Ho or Kanekila told me "you song-a, she is a-no good." I wouldn't get angry or distraught. I'd ask for tips, give them writing credit and move on. That's the way I would hope everyone would react here instead of "who are you to tell me about it" or "that's a punk move."

OK, now as penance for dare speaking ill of the carver forum, I'll post another story there about Pele today.

I've been thinking a lot about this as I wade through certain threads with exasperation, this thread just pulled the trigger and I had a little time on my hands today. So please don't think I'm disparaging or discouraging young, learning artists. I just want to see some of octane's carvings or Rain's paintings and I haven't lately.