Art Music and Dance at Kalani

Every few months Kalani hosts an art event. Last night was the winter celebration.

Oils by Leno Laure.
Kehena Beach scene by Justin.
I didn't catch the young guy's name that did these cool graffiti caps. He was also taking custom orders.
Don Young's Red Road painting.
Carol Delano's Oils.
Surf board art by Roy.
Arthur's most recent landscape and his "sketch" for the St. Regis Hotel project.

I actually had some new stuff to show (new meaning never been displayed).


Richard painted these doors that will adorn Kalani Mauka and Kalani Kai. Please go to his kalani website for more info.




I shot more videos but the files are too big, I'm just uploading the smaller files. You get the idea.

And then we all danced to Marimba.

Ho ho ho

Season's Greetings

This is the little beach that started to form around 20 years ago when the Kalapana lava flow started and pushed out the famous surfer's beach that had been there for centuries. I've never braved out there myself but on the Solstice our friend, Roger, decided to give us all a show. We clapped when he got back to shore (for me a relief as well as admiration).

holiday party at the gallery

Kehena lock down

From about 4 AM until 4PM today there was a road closure into and out of our little village of Kehena due to a report of gunshots in the middle of the night. At first I heard it was a sniper and that the police were looking for him. Then I heard he had a machine gun. We went down to the beach and saw the blockade on our way down. At the beach we heard that a guy had barricaded himself in his home and had guns and explosives. It kept escalating. We don't really know the truth yet because until less than an hour ago the police couldn't get the guy to come out of his house (about 2 blocks from us--lovely). We did our usual big swim (beautiful day and super calm seas, I didn't even need my wetsuit, it was that warm). On our way home the police told us we couldn't even go through the jungle to get home. So we had to go back down to the beach and then go to our friend's house and hang until they had the situation handled. We even saw a big swat mobile. What a day. Hope no one was hurt. Someone interviewed our friend, Roger, for the local paper. We'll have to look for the story in tomorrow's edition (www.hawaiitribune-herald.com) for more information.

Update: the man was killed. Here's the link.

Max

We had a sweet yogi from Seattle today. Here's my 25 minute sketch. Can't wait to do this for real in Barcelona (Arthur's jk).

Happy Halloween

We get to be ridiculous at least one day a year! We made these costumes for a party last weekend. Great that Arthur had extra card board.

Dog Eat Dog World

Recent concept for a graduation card- you know, it's a dog eat dog world out there...

Another trip to the lava flow...

I don't usually get up before 7, but if you want to see the lava, you gotta go when it's dark and the best time is before sunrise. You walk out in the dark so you can see the lava flowing from the mountain (it was), see the glowing fireworks (we did), see the sunrise (actually, the plume from the smoke obscured the sunrise, but still cool), and then a relatively easy hike back to the car. So yes, I did get up at 4:30 this morning. Totally worth it. I couldn't believe how close we got (and yes, I was a little frightened as well as awed by it).


















This is what I saw as I was leaving the area...

Portrait drawing at Arthur's studio

Arthur jokes that maybe he and I should take a trip to Barcelona and do portraits on the streets. Sounds like fun to me.

Obon in Pahoa

I've been kinda getting sucked into life drawing and beach sketching world and haven't really had much to report lately. This weekend Bon dancing came to Pahoa. Actually, Saturday was very busy but I'll just talk about the Bon dance. It's a Buddhist festival to honor the beloved departed ancestors. Pahoa was once a sugar cane town with a lot of Japanese workers. There's even a Japanese cemetary that I didn't know about located in the back areas. I never saw so many Japanese come out to one location in Pahoa (because now it's been taken over by the come lately hippie types that cruise the health food store and a few other shops. The town really has potential and it keeps trying to make it but it's pretty scruffy and has a ways to go before it's another Paia or even a Hawi. And bringing in a Long's Drugstore and some national chain fast food places on the other end of Pahoa isn't exactly amping up the charm meter.

Back to the Bon dance, held in the Buddhist (temple--it's hard to call it that because the building is very sterile and lackluster) parking lot. Here are some videos from that event. I especially loved this boy who really knew the moves. I tried to join in a little, along with my friends Y and C but we don't know the dances, at least my attempts were too feeble and I get embarrassed very easily, so I opted for being the camera person.



In the end we watched from outside the chain link fence (more minus charm points - ha) as we spotted a couple of friends dance by. Our friends acknowledged that they'd been practicing for weeks. Well, of course.

My friend, Y from Japan, was telling me that it wasn't so popular any more for the young to mix with the old in the real Japan. Similar to language (I studied linguistics a long time ago), how people who move to another area keep their old phrasing and don't "change with the times" of the original culture. So too must a cultural phenomenon that's huge in Hawaii and other parts where in this case the Japanese transplanted themselves many generations ago the traditions haven't changed so much in the host country. A kind of historical "artifact" of what the people brought over (a hundred years ago). It must be true in other cultures. That would be a fascinating study.

Coffee and Art at the Four Seasons

I'm trying to come up with some new images for the Cream of the Crop Coffee and Art Show at the Four Seasons Hotel this Saturday (10AM -2PM). I'm having fun. This will be the third year that Arthur and I have done this show.

Sketching at the beach

For I think the past two years I've been keeping a sketch journal of my trips to the beach. I keep the sketch book in my backpack with a few pencils so it's always there, whenever I want to draw. It's good practice for me and a fun way to pass the time, since I don't really like to lie around myself. But luckily, I have lots of subjects who do. It's a great way for me to combine my two loves, drawing and swimming.

Arthur's Life Drawing Class

Arthur had his first life drawing session at his studio. Today's topic, negative space and Arthur had a very novel way of demonstrating it with a large cardboard cutout. It made it easier to see the negative space.
I was his assistant. That means clean up before the class and after and make sure everyone has enough paper. Please read about his class at his blog. He asked me to upload some photos to his blog but for some unknown reason it's blocked at the moment so I'm including the photos here. Next week's class covers gesture. Drop in fee is $25, of which a portion goes to the model.

A J Gallery Notes: Art Opening, Friday, June 19th

A J Gallery Notes: Art Opening, Friday, June 19th

Friendship....the Bread.

Seriously, someone gave me a starter for an Amish Friendship Bread with a sheet of instructions. 10 days later I made two loaves of very tasty bread and 4 starters of my own to pass on to friends... Now it's 10 days later again and I have two more loaves, my friends have two loaves each and we all have more starters to pass on. You see where this is going. It's a pyramid scam where we will run out of friends to give these to and the funniest part is we are all on the same schedule, baking 10 days later and having more of these starters (and so on). It's way too funny. Of course, I gave one to my paint buddy, Arthur. He was wondering if we really have to go through all this (the instructions call for mushing and mushing everyday and adding ingredients along the way) or if we could just bake using the recipe without the starter, really, because of all this dividing you end up using only 1 cup of starter so it becomes kind of a minor part of the recipe... I guess someone will have to do a test, but I suspect this is to just keep one on a baking schedule... at least no one said if you break this 'chain' something terrible might happen. Arthur, please do the test so we can find out if we can stop baking every 10 days...

Rogerio turns 50

A good friend is turning the Big 5-0, which of course doesn't seem so old in scale any more, but it's still a significant number (next one being 100?--).

Anyway, my friend is into yoga but his other passion which we all kind of share, though aren't as proficient at it as he is is Sudoku. But I thought maybe this image was a little more dignified. He is the king of Sudoku in our neighborhood though.

Cheers, Rogerio.

Our jobs.

Some people get the attitude that because we love what we do it isn't work anymore. But the truth to me is that this is what I do for a living so even though it's kinda fun, okay, really fun, it's still 'work'. Here's Arthur and Cosette discussing her painting (at the jobsite)--yesterday.

Adam should have won.

Want more American Idol videos? Click here.

Joy of drawing.

Sometimes we get a model that is so perfect they are almost too easy to draw. And because of this also a joy thanks to all the parts being in proportion. Such was the case last Saturday for our life drawing session. This is a drawing I just did here on the computer from memory. See, pretty effortless, even with a mouse.

New Pareos for the gallery

How I spent my Tuesday afternoon with Arthur, the silk screen king...

Kalani Part 3, Performance Art

The performance portion of the program was short, only two dances, one with hula dancers doing O Pele with a silk dancer and then Kimo doing a solo.

Kalani Art Show

Right after the opening ceremony Kalani hosted an art and performance show. It's a local style show, people from the neighborhood but mostly Kalani volunteers show their craft. There's always a lot of creativity that comes through Kalani. I participated with 3 new pieces, including a portrait of a hula dancer (because I was told that was the theme, notice how everyone complied...)