Making Media
Community Contributed by Alestra Menendez, Molokai Art and Media Academy director
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Art
Add your commentCreating a Space for Creativity
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Pottery classes. Keiki learning how to sculpt or paint. Dance lessons. Workshops to teach local artists marketability, and for visiting artists to share the secrets of their craft. That’s what Molokai Arts Center (MAC) organizers envision as a vibrant workspace for community members to learn, teach and engage in art.
The vacant building behind Coffees of Hawaii might look sparse now, but it is already undergoing a transformation into what could become an artistic hub for Molokai.
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MAC is currently looking for building material donations, including shelving, and art equipment, including kilns. For more information, call Markham at 349-6270 or visit http://molokaiarts.yolasite.com/. Tax deductible donations may be sent as checks to the Molokai Arts Center at HC1 Box 370, Kaunakakai, HI 96748.
Acting Themselves
The Molokai High School Theater Group is getting back in the acting groove and preparing for its upcoming play, “The Princess and the Pea.”
The group started getting together for practice after school four days per week in January, preparing a play that will take the stage on May 2, 3, 5 at the MHS cafeteria-turned-theater.
Theater used to be offered as a class at MHS, when the funds were available, but now, the 21st Century program supports the acting club as an after-school program.
With the help of 21st Century, they are able to buy costumes and stage supplies.
Modern Kids, Old History
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Students at Kualapu`u School transformed their auditorium into a multi-cultural mecca last Thursday with a school play about Hawaii’s history.
“I wasn’t nervous today,” said La`a Sumarnap, a sixth grader of Kualapu`u School.
Last Thursday’s play portrayed important events from Hawaii’s history, starting with the formation of Hawaii’s archipelago, to the banning of hula, and the migration of Chinese, Japanese and Filipinos who worked on Hawaii’s plantations.
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“We made our drums out of tires and tape,” he said.
Kenilyn Nishihiri-Aki, a sixth grader at Kualapu`u , summed up the play.
“We all have aloha for this place where we live. We love the Hawaiian culture,” she said.
Igniting Dreams
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Some artists use paint as a tool of the imagination, others prefer clay, but for one artist, setting her art aflame brings culmination to the project. Mavis Muller, an artist from Homer, Alaska, came to Molokai two weeks ago and began her 20th public basket-burning project.
Muller spent the past week building a 7-foot structure with local community members willing to help. They used coffee plants, haole koa, mangrove, banana and other local plants for the basket.
Muller finds it to be a healing process when people can burn their heartfelt messages inside a hollow pedestal and basket, she said.
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Last Saturday at Ali`i Fishpond, she invited people to write down and insert prayers, dreams and hopes on pieces of paper inside the basket. Around sunset, Kauwila Hanchett chanted in Hawaiian and torches were lit. Soon after, the dreams, hopes, and prayers of Molokai took a new form.
One woman even put a piece of her wedding dress in the basket. Another brought old love letters.
Muller calls her project “public art.”
“I feel like I have butterflies in my stomach and my heart is wide open,” one participant said.
Muller has held her burning events on Maui, and in California and Oregon as well as her home state.
“She uses the art as a healing force,” said Teri Waros, owner of Kalele Bookstore and Divine Expressions, who helped facilitate the event. “It helps serve people here in our community.”
“I think this is a great way for the community to get together,” said participant Drake Wells.
Calling All Artists
Community Contributed
By Kim Markham
Molokai Arts Center is inviting artists to submit grant proposals for the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. The theme of this year’s grant program is “Mobilizing the Community Through the Arts” – a perfect theme for the start of Molokai’s first community art center.
Local Artist Honored
Community Contributed by Victoria Kapuni
Master carver and local Molokai artist Bill Kapuni will have one of his lifetime achievements on display for the public to enjoy beginning at the end of the month. A model of the pyramid he and artist Rafeal Trenor co-created was donated to the Molokai Public Library, and is being dedicated Monday, March 28 at 3 p.m. in Kapuni’s memory for all Molokai people to enjoy. The pyramid was created for an international peace project in 2002 and sculpted on his Kalama`ula ag land – one of eight pyramids of its kind in the world.
Arts Center Nears Construction
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Molokai Art Center (MAC) made it one step closer to the renovation of their new building this past weekend. They hosted nearly 250 people at a sold-out event at Coffees of Hawaii in an effort to fundraise for the first-ever art center on Molokai.
Last Saturday’s “Soup ‘R Bowl” party treated guests to handmade ceramic soup bowls, eight homemade soups, and the music of local musicians.
“I think [the center is] an important part of the community. We need a place for [artists] to do what they do,” said Darlene Hall, a community resident.
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The arts center was founded in 2010 with local artists Emillia Noordhoek, Dan Bennett, Kim Markham, April Torres and Betty West. The board members have been throwing fundraisers ever since in order to renovate one of the buildings on the Coffees’ property.
MAC is nearing the finalization of a five year lease for a 763 square foot structure behind the coffee processing plant. President Emillia Noordhoek said that she plans on signing the lease within the next couple of weeks.
The group had abandoned the idea of renovating a different building on Coffee’s property, because it would have been too costly to make the structure useable and safe, according to Bennett.
The Art Center will feature a kiln, eight wheels, and a raku kiln. Raku is a Japanase-style of firing, which uses a low-heat process.
“I thought it was great. I had a great audience and I’d gladly do it again,” said one of the night’s musicians, Norman DeCosta.
After the signing of the lease, the committee can finalize its building plans and begin construction.
“We hope to start having classes by this summer,” Noordhoek said.
Painter-Author Coming to Molokai
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A nationally-known artist from North Carolina, will be holding a book signing of her new book, “Painter by Providence” at Kalele Bookstore and Divine Expressions on March 4. Dee Beard Dean will be attending the Maui Plein Air invitational Paintout before coming to Molokai.
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Many of the images in the book were painted en plein air at her easel around Taos, the coastal Southeast, Mexico and Ecuador. In the first several chapters, Dean shares with readers intriguing anecdotes about her life growing up in rural Indiana, raising her children in a “Robinson Cruso-esque” atmosphere in Key Largo, Florida, and her fascinating career as a high fashion designer with her own national designer label. Later chapters are devoted to her full-time career as a renowned painter of breathtaking and color-laden landscapes, figures and portraits.
When painting outdoor scenery, Dean observes, “In plein air (out-of-doors) painting, the brushwork is truly the poetry of the painting. Rich in texture, color, meaning, and layers of emotions such as joy and confidence, brushstrokes reveal the artist’s innermost feelings at the moment the pigment was applied to the canvas.”
Dean will be at Kalele Bookstore from 12 noon – 2 p.m. on March 4. For more information, her website is DeeBeardDean.com
One-Stop Online Shopping
molokaiARTgallery.com News Release
Navigating all that Molokai has to offer has just become more convenient, and more accessible. Local artist and business owner, Linda Johnston has created www.molokaiARTgallery.com. The site is “the go-to website for Molokai” a community-based forum offering a platform for local artists and entrepreneurs to easily share their work and services with the public. It is also an online resource that serves as a guide to island life, offering touring, entertainment and lodging options for residents and tourists. Visitors appreciate reliable information from a long-time resident.
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