Category Archives: Website Updates

Wahi Pana: A Sense of Place wrapup

The exhibition at Honolulu Musuem of Art School’s Main Gallery wrapped up on July 5th. This blog will continue to discuss wahi pana and offer opportunities to visit and learn about other wahi pana. Send me an email or comment here if you have suggestions, tips or share your experiences of wahi pana.

The exhibition displayed 73 works of art by 46 local artists. Eight wahi pana were represented: Thomas Square Park, Kea’iwa Heiau, Kawainui Wetlands, Waikiki from the zoo to Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center, Makaha to Ka’ena, Pu’u Honua Honaunau, Hilo, I’ao Valley.

The opening drew over 250 guests but during the 30 days it was open, there was an average of 30 visitors each day with over 1000 who came to see the show. There were at least nine works sold as a result of collectors seeing the work and other artists have reported other opportunities to participate in other shows or gain exposure for their work. The dialogue and learning about wahi pana, and the locations engaged teachers, students, artists, Hawaiian Cultural Practitioners and activists in discussing the importance of how one makes connection to your home.

As a result of this experience and with encouragement from ‘ohana, I’ve decided to continue wahi pana as a way to help malihini, kama’aina and kanaka maoli make connection with our ‘aina and a way to spread and share aloha internationally through spreading the knowledge and experience of wahi pana. Keep an eye out for opportunities for huaka’i (walking tours) and paintouts and other activities to open our eyes and hearts to the places we call home.

Mahalo e to all those who helped make this project a success! Makaho ke akua for guiding and protecting us.

Moving into a New Phase

A CHANGING SITE: LOOK FOR NEW INSTRUCTIONS FOR FRAMING AND SUBMISSION
The site is going to change as the show approaches – slowly changing from education to preparation and finally presentation to the public. We are officially now in the art preparation phase where artists are well under way on their pieces with a deadline of April 5 for submission. To help you, we just released guides for framing and submission. Framing takes a while, especially if you opt to order online, so we have those instructions ready for you now so you can place orders in advance of the exhibit. These instructions are time-sensitive, so in place of perfection, we have opted to release them and issue revisions. Please take a look now so you have an idea of what to expect but check back for a more complete version at the end of March for submission – we are hitting some snags with online payment that we will iron out.

Accordingly, to prevent the menu from becoming a nightmare, the links on the menu are being moved to help simplify the interface. Now some of the pages we created to help you with education and creation days have moved to the “Archive” – you can still see them, but they are neatly stored under a nice drop-down menu heading. If anything is there, it is still good information, but it is no longer top priority.

MAHALO TO ART CREATION DAY PARTICIPANTS
Thank you to everyone who took the time to participate in the art creation days and to learn the history of the wahi pana locations. Special thanks to the extra effort of our island neighbors who have added the inter-island participation to this exhibit and events. This has been very exciting and makes the islands feel more unified.

SEE THE PREPARATIONS UNFOLD ON SOCIAL MEDIA
I would encourage you to pay attention to Instagram and Facebook. There have been many wonderful Facebook and Instagram posts. Search for the #wahipana and #associationofhawaiiartists tags (click on them inside Instagram or type them into the search bar, or look at the Facebook page for Association of Hawaii Artists to see many – but not all – of the posts). I am still playing catch up with posts – I have more than 20 more to go from the March 8 – 10 weekend! Posting these photos has been a lovely experience – to review them each and see the pieces unfolding from so many artists with different styles is a dream come true. There is so much energy in these works of art!

Aloha,
Wendy Roberts
Web Developer for (and enthusiastic participant of) Wahi Pana

The Kawainui Tour/Lecture Series is on YouTube!

Kawainui Marsh at Sunset; photo by Wendy Roberts; Access to this area of Kawainui is via Kaha Park

Aloha artists! We recently completed the editing and posting of videos from the tour of Kawainui Marsh with Dr. Paul Brennan. It was initially planned to be on-site, but only the first clip displays the rainy day outdoors that sent us scurrying inside. We moved over to Sherree’s home (thank you Sherree!) and continued to listen to the history of the area. After reviewing the videos, I felt there were 5 main topics that could each have a well-organized clip:

Kawainui Tour on a rainy day; photo by Spencer Chang

Kawainui Marsh – The Flow of Water: https://youtu.be/jxfCwL60mi8

Kawainui Marsh – Wahi Pana and the Role of Artists: https://youtu.be/fMaQ3cHFrsM

Na Pohaku o Hauwahine and the Rice Mills:  https://youtu.be/I8JbTSle8cU

Kawainui Agriculture: https://youtu.be/QerpTvKh9U4

Ulupo Heiau Area: https://youtu.be/dYvB9tHnvvs

Ulupo Heiau has a Hawaiian Garden full of beautiful loi and plants that were useful to Hawaiians. It is amazing! Photo by Joel Bradshaw
Na Pohaku o Hauwahine has a beautiful trail of endemic, native, and canoe plants overlooking the Kawainui wetlands. At the top of the promontory is a wahi pana: the boulders where Hauwahine, powerful mo’o guardian of Kawainui primarily spent her time.

Together, these clips are more than half the tour. The remainder will be edited and published later. The other segments of the tour grew organically out of these primary topics and largely discuss Maunawili, Kailua town, and Coconut Grove, all areas we are not covering in the Wahi Pana Exhibit, but excellent information that ought to be shared online (and I will!).

I promised to drop the coordinates for the beginning of Na Pohaku o Hauwahine Trail as well. Please click this link to view the entry to Na Pohaku o Hauwahine. Note, this is a place that will be a little harder to work than most Wahi Pana sites. The nearest bathrooms are at Kaha/ Kawainui Neighborhood Park, a 5-minute drive once you have hiked out of your work area. The third site is also easier: YMCA will usually let you use the bathroom there as you visit Ulupo Heiau if you are polite about it.

No matter which bathrooms you use, please do not leave any trace of paints or other inconvenient art materials in the bathroom sinks or floors, and plan to clean anything that can clog drains at home. I usually clean my water-based media brushes as well as I can, then wrap with wet paper towels to keep them pliable until I can get home and clean them more thoroughly with soap. I clean oil paint brushes either with small amounts of carefully controlled oils or spirits, or I wrap them in a paper towel until I can go home and wash them well the moment I get there. There are ways of containing and preventing creative materials from dirtying communal areas. Please be aware of this and pack carefully. We will soon have guides up for working outdoors for several media posted on the site. These guides will help you be ready if you have never painted on-site before.