Continuation of Ed's Life Section cover story.

Tiki artist tastes fame

TIKIS, from 1E

travels without his chainsaw, should he come across wood free for the taking.

But he's not quite sure how Home & Garden spotted him.

"I guess Home & Garden needed someone who was photogenic, good looking and talented," Volonnino kids. "Or most likely they stumbled on my Web site."

According to Pauly, the associate producer, the latter is most likely.

A few Sundays ago, the show's production crew followed Volonnino as he carved and painted his tikis. The crew followed him around town to homes and businesses that have his work.

"I demonstrated the whole routine of how I make one of these (tikis)," he said. "How I go about aging the wood and peeling the bark ... how I hand paint them."

Anyone who has seen him in action when he chisels his creations at Melbourne's Abaco Jack's know they probably don't want to try it at home.

"Ed's show was a little more difficult because he is more of an artist and his home reflects that," says the episode's producer Theresa Hayward. "So as we filmed it became less about his house and his yard and more about the people who had tiki heads in their homes."

This isn't the first time Ed's Heads has gotten national exposure. Last year, he made a chapter in Gary Monroe's book "Extraordinary Interpretations: Florida's Self-Taught Artists."

He won't say if such exposure brought more work his way. Most people find out about him through word of mouth when they spot his tikis around town.

And he won't make any predictions of how his life might change after his work appears on HGTV. He'll only joke about it.

"I figure the traffic will come to a grinding halt as people rush home to see it," he says. "Sort of like Beatles on Ed Sullivan."

Local tiki carver competition

Wayne Coombs is another Brevard County tiki carver.

He and Ed Volonnino were once considered fierce rivals.

"We've since buried the hatchet on that — we're too old for that," says Coombs, who recalls Volonnino "as one of the kids on the school bus" when Coombs was starting his tiki career in Cocoa Beach.

Volonnino says it was Coombs who inspired him when he was 17.

But he also notes his style is unlike Coombs'.

For starters, Volonnino only uses a chainsaw to cut trees that can provide him his pallet. Once he starts a tiki, he uses chisels from start to finish. He says it provides him to give his pieces more detail.

Coombs carves with chainsaws. "If you can control a chainsaw, it's just another chisel."

FLORIDA TODAY file

Lights, camera, action. Marten Kaufman of Orlando, a freelance cameraman for HGTV, films tiki carver Ed Volonnino at Abaco Jack's in Melbourne for "Offbeat America," a home and garden television show that airs at 6 p.m. Sundays on HGTV. Volonnino's show will air in August.

Craig Rubadoux, FLORIDA TODAY

Melbourne tiki artist gets a taste of fame.

LIFE, 1E

Ed Volonnino's tiki creations