The Tiki Lounge! The Art of Jon P. Mooers

This blog is created by Jon Mooers. Here you can view my Polynesia/Tiki inspired artwork. You'll often find postings, thoughts and ideas that are currently influencing me. Other artwork including my murals can be viewed here.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Ode to the Tiki Mug!



Growing up in the '60s and '70s, I feel lucky to have experienced a cultural phenomonon which is so quickly disappearing in the current years. The tiki lounge or polynesian restaurant. I was born and raised in the Boston Massachusetts area. The polynesian lounge of the northeast usually was a chinese restaurant decked out in Polynesian or Tiki decor. The menu consisted of chinese style entrees including a sizzling steak platter or a Pu-Pu platter with flaming Hibachi, to heat your boneless spareribs or steak on a stick. Not until I was legal drinking age (18 yrs back then) was I able to enjoy my first Mai Tai, Zombie, Suffering Bastard, Headhunter or Scorpion bowl. Somewhere around 1980 I probably added my first Tiki Mug into my tiki mug collection. The Mai Kai Restaurant in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire served fantastic cocktails in souvenir mugs. However, i don't believe the owners considered them souvenir mugs. I still ahve that first mug in my collection - now 50 or so strong.!
I've started to paint Tiki Mug portratits to celebrate this vanishing restaurant tradition - below you'll see two of my most recent Tiki Mug Portraits

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
18" X 24" Acrylic on canvas

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
16" X 20" Acrylic on canvas

posted by artdog @ 5:48 PM  

1 Comments:

  • At 9:57 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Say, I recognize the hand holdin' that tiki mug! ;)

    I don't suppose you happen to remember the address of the Mai Kai in Hampton Beach, do you? I've found an address for a Mai Kai in Manchester, but no such luck for a Hampton Beach location. Do you remember which street it was on?

     

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