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Saturday, August 18, 2001
Cultural carvings
Borneo native’s sculpting skills bring dead palm trees to life
By Leanne Libby
Caller-Times

George Gongora/Caller-Times

Ritus Kian, who moved to Corpus Christi from Borneo in 1989, has been carving faces in discarded palm tree trunks for about three months. Kian, who previously studied orangutan behavior for an anthropologist in Borneo, would like to start carving more intricate designs using harder wood. He said he would soon start working on duplicating this orangutan statue.

When Ritus Kian has a day off from managing Fox Nursery's tree trimming crews, he doesn't take a break from the elements and park himself in front of the TV. Instead, he might be found standing in the dirt beside his driveway, using a chainsaw to carve faces on palm tree trunks.
   Kian, who moved to Corpus Christi from Borneo in 1989, has taken his restless nature and turned it into a profitable hobby. Soon after collecting dead palm trees and transforming them into art, Kian found people wanted to buy his work and use it to dress up their yards. Three months and about 30 carvings later, Kian is onto something. Still, he's not one to get too excited about it.
   "It's something to do," Kian, 31, said. "Some of them take 30 minutes, or they might take an hour."
   Chainsaw creativity
   Kian's wife, Patricia Jones, explained that her husband is a Dayak, the original inhabitants of Borneo. The two met when they were working for anthropologist Birute Galdikas, who was in Borneo to study orangutans. Kian was one of Galdikas' senior assistants, observing orangutan behavior. Jones primarily worked in the orangutan nursery, caring for sick or orphaned animals.
   In his outdoor work area at home, Kian steps away from a partially-completed carving, sawdust covering his arms and dusting his T-shirt, to explain why he chooses these designs.
   "I guess they are kind of like what people do for gravesites where I'm from," he said. "They use two heads, one at each end of the grave, instead of crosses, like people do here."
   After cutting features with the chainsaw, Kian polishes the trunk with sandpaper and seals it with varnish. So far, Kian has met with little frustration. The soft wood he's working with is forgiving; he hasn't has to scrap a carving yet.
   Kian sells most of his carvings for around $100 to $150 each, but he has kept a few for himself. One on the left side of his house, for example, has a hat of sorts made by a cement birdbath. In the front yard, another face greets passers-by.

George Gongora/Caller-Times

After cutting designs into the palm wood with a chainsaw, Kian uses sandpaper to smooth the faces out a bit. He finishes the statues with a coat of varnish and sells them for $100 to $150 apiece.

   "You should see the ones where I take the root ball and turn it," he said, gesturing as though he's flipping a tree upside down. "It's like hair. Or, I can put a hole in the top, and you can insert a plant."
   Kian demonstrates the idea by grabbing a hanging plant out of his lush yard and placing it atop the carving, instantly transforming the stern expression into something whimsical.
   Now that he feels comfortable with his technique, Kian wants the challenge of working with harder woods and more complicated designs. He brings out a small, hardwood statue of an orangutan, which he said would be the model for his next project.
   Maria Jones, manager of the retail nursery at Fox Nursery on Staples Street, has been stocking Kian's creations for almost as long as he has been making them. She said she's sold about 12 to 18 of the carved trees, selling out completely about a week ago.
   "He started carving and we put them up," Jones said. "They were in here for two to three weeks, with people stopping to look at them, and then they started selling."
   Jones said the attraction of Kian's work is that it satisfies homeowners' desire to move beyond the usual yard art.
   "It's something totally different, something you normally wouldn't find in South Texas," she said. "It's astonishing: he figures out what he's going to do, carves it in and boom! It's done."
   Jean McTaggart, one of Kian's neighbors, has two of the carvings, one in the front yard and one in back. She said they remind her of totem poles.
   "I drove by one day and said, 'Ritus! What are you doing?' Of course, I'm from Scotland and he's from Borneo, so half the time we can't understand what the other is saying," she said with a laugh.
   McTaggart said Kian told her that, according to legend, the statues take the bad luck away from the house and bring good luck in.
   While Kian has told his neighbor he's working on refining his technique, she hopes he doesn't stray too far from his simple designs.
   "It's a native kind of thing," she said. "It's basic and I like that. It looks good, and it feels good when you look at it."


Contact Leanne Libby at 886-3615 or libbyl@caller.com

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