October Tiki of the Month for Halloween

The October Tiki of the Month is ready for Halloween, complete with his mask. Does a mask like that really hide his identity? Probably not. But he is happy to take his place in the Tiki of the Month lineup.

Maybe next year we should work on getting him a better costume. Something that hides his identity more, perhaps? Are Halloween costumes even supposed to hide your identity? Probably not, but that’s okay.

Identity

One year, I went to a Halloween party. Somewhere along the way, two people came in dressed in elaborate costumes, and for the longest time, no one there knew who they were. They had hidden their identities pretty well. We eventually figured it out, and we all had a good laugh afterward. But for a little while we had some questions about it.

What is your identity? What are you known for? Many people get their identity from their job. When someone meets you for the first time, one of the first things they ask is, “Where do you work?” I always feel like work is just a small part of who I am. What I do for work does not define who I am.

Let your true identity come from the things that you do outside of work. Be involved in church, help the poor, volunteer somewhere, do things for other people. Get your identity from what you really do, not just from where you work.

And work hard to make your identity something that you are proud of, too. We all know people who do not have what most would consider to be a good reputation. Don’t be that person. Be the kind of person who is known for the good works that you do.

But don’t do good works so that you can get glory from it. Do those good works to help others. Do those good works to glorify God and not yourself.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” - Matthew 5:14-16

About the Artwork

I had mentioned in the September Tiki of the Month post that I had already started on this month’s tiki at the same time as that September tiki, and this is what I had done. At that time, I only had the line drawing with no color, and the color was added much more recently. I wanted to use something besides just the normal brown and blue colors that I use. So there is a bit of green and purple in this one, just for fun.

I also wanted to do something different with the background besides the traditional “tiki in the grass with a sky behind” background that I use so often. So this background is much more abstract. Yes, it looks like the tiki is just floating in some sort of weird space, but that is fine. For part of the background, I used a brush that painted splotches of orange. And then I applied a Gaussian blur effect to that layer to create the blurry effect that you see here. What is all of that supposed to represent? Nothing at all, actually. Just something fun and different than usual.