Smoky Glow Studios

Hui No’eau's 2012 Juried Exhibition

2012-01-01T20:09:00.000-08:00

A nice start to a New Year, I got several pinhole photographs in this years Hui Noeau Juried Exhibit. I've been working on a set of encaustic and india ink drawings; hopfully I'll be ready to submit them for the up coming Art Maui Annual 2012. Thanks to my friend John for the encouragement to keep steadily working.

Popo kapa wai lehua- Wring out the dark rainclouds

Me ke 'ala o ka lipoa- With it's fragrance of the lipoa (seaweed)

Vegetable Oil and Sumi Ink Prints

2011-10-22T00:42:00.000-07:00

Panel with "found papers", sumi ink and beeswax

An artist friend of mine shared with me a very entertaining technique using vegetable oil and sumi ink. You take a vat or small plastic tub, fill it with water. Then you work with two sumi ink brushes- one in each hand, one brush gets dipped in vegatable oil and the other dipped in sumi ink and you then alternate tapping the surface of the water with the ink brush and the oil brush. The oil resists the ink making a sort of marbeling effect that floats right on the surface of the water. After you get a pleasing composition,take a sheet of paper and just sort of gently 'kiss' the surface of the water in the tub, and quickly, carefully lift the paper right back out. The marbeled ink composition will transfer onto the paper. The effects are really lovely.

Encaustic and Mixed Media

2011-10-22T00:20:00.000-07:00

The Egg detail

The Egg, Panel with "found papers", sumi ink and beeswax

Cyanotype & VanDyke- studies with light sensitive materials

2011-04-28T01:37:00.000-07:00

Camera Obscura

2011-03-03T13:46:00.000-08:00

Zero 2000 Pinhole Camera 30 minute exposure

"In the high-tech world pinhole photography becomes perfectly an outsider, but a tiny hole is the oldest optics which led the Renaissance scientists to invent "Camera Obscura", ancestor of our modern cameras". Mieko Tadokoro

Lensless Photography

2010-11-19T10:35:00.001-08:00

Here is a small preview from a very happy new assignment that I have been asked to participate. It is a collaborative project that revolves around a series of wearable tapestries, created by New York artist, Susan David. She has separate designs for each piece making them one of a kind and has painstakingly sewn sequence, beads, applied photo transfers and fine stichwork onto the backs of vintage jean jackets that she had been collecting over a period. Really superb work.
Susan and I have been hauling around a seamstress mannequin to different locations in Hawaii and photographing the jackets using all sorts of alternative photo techniques.
These are several of the images we processed using a pinhole camera.

My Grandfathers Drawings

2010-04-08T19:22:00.000-07:00

These are classic. They are renderings or homework assignments that my grandfather had when he attended New York University College of Fine Arts- Dept. of Architecture back in 1935. They have a stamp in the lower left hand corner from the professor who issued the grades. D plus, B, C, etc. Interesting to try to apply a grading system to a drawing, even if it is from an architectural point of view.

One of the major challenges in art production is learning how to balance our thinking, about our role or responsibility as artists and balancing our thinking between true economic possibilities and the lack of economic possibilities. It is so important to find ways to strengthen our belief in ourselves and our art, to avoid putting too much emphasis on what other people think and to keep building on our belief in self-motivation and self-reliance and have the confidence to know that our creative abilities will make a significant difference in a world of intense competition and rapid change.

Miracle On The Mountain

2010-04-03T10:52:00.000-07:00

Miracle on the Mountain- article from Maui No Ka Oi magazine
Pull on some boots, grab a digging stick, and help bring a Hawaiian dryland forest back from the brink.
Story by Paul Wood | Photography by Bob Bangerter

It’s dawn on a Saturday and dozens of people are parking in the gravel lot next to ‘Ulupalakua Ranch Store. You can tell by their dress that this expedition is no surfing safari: heavy boots, knit caps, down vests, Pendleton shirts and camo pants. The air is crisp and silent at 3,000 feet, back side of Haleakala. The mood is cordial but quiet, some handclasps and nose rubbing, but little inclination to chatter. Everyone knows why they’ve come, and it isn’t to socialize. Using stiff brushes, each person scours his or her boots assiduously, knocking off any seed or crumb of lowland soil that might be stuck in the treads. Then the assembled wedge themselves into four-wheel-drive vehicles—along with picks and ‘o‘o (digging sticks) and flats full of seedlings growing in long yellow dibble tubes—and the vehicles begin to caravan straight up the mountain over ranch trails and rocky pastureland.

The landscape is tilted and dizzying at this elevation. These leeward slopes are largely devoid of trees, and the wind beats unbroken against cracked boulders and weary kikuyu grass. The land is pleated and humped with domes, still twisted in the fantastic shapes of lava that once blew out of vents in Haleakala’s Southwest Rift Zone. The sea channel far below ripples in the wind. Sunlight and racing clouds play tricks of color on the cobalt flatness and on the red-brown islands off shore—eyelash-like Molokini, long Kaho‘olawe, and far in the eastern sky, the mirage-like dome of Mauna Kea.

"We're beginning a march back in time."
This was all forest once, from the top of the mountain all the way down to what is now called Wailea. People lived here in the old days, walking under a canopy light enough to allow a great diversity of life—a multitude of lichens and spiders, insects and birds that occurred nowhere else on Earth. This was one of the greatest dryland forests in all Hawai‘i. The dryland forests were quite different from their wetland counterparts on the windward side of the mountain, in that they comprised so many more species, species of all kinds, but especially of trees.

I could list the names of these trees, but the names would probably not ring a bell, unless perhaps you know the old chants. Holei is a lovely tree with fragrant flowers, the source of a brilliant dye. Kauila has wood that’s almost as hard as iron. Lama represented both lamplight and the enlightenment of the mind. These trees and dozens of others are almost gone from the Earth, just as the great forest that was their home is almost gone from leeward Haleakala. The key word is “almost.”

All those warm-dressed, clean-booted expeditioners are headed upslope with a single mission—to replant that forest one seedling at a time.

Auwahi is the name of the mountain district where this wildly unlikely reforestation is happening, nudged ahead by monthly outings of quietly determined volunteers.

The first time I went on one of these Auwahi trips was about ten years ago. I remember the austerity of the mountain and the smallness of the seedlings that we inserted into pockets of soil, signing off with a cup of water and a prayer, the wind whipping and whipping them as soon as we turned our backs. These seedlings had all come from the trees that remained in the vicinity, raised in a nursery back at ‘Ulupalakua Ranch headquarters until big enough to be returned to their bleak native homeland. The parents of these seedlings still stood, bent as geriatric patients in an apocalyptic nursing home. With our own backs bent in honor of the almost moribund trees, we planted their keiki (children) for them.

Dr. Art Medeiros is the man who identified the need, collected the native seed, and gathered the forces to heed the call for last-minute, hang-on-by-a-fingernail restoration of Maui’s formerly great dryland forest. Like an Old Testament prophet, the Maui biologist is bearded, eloquent, and standing resolute at the drawbridge before native Hawai‘i’s last stand. He’s the one who identified Auwahi as a “museum forest” with elderly trees that lived without hope—without an understory, a younger generation, a tomorrow. He convinced the Erdman family, whose ‘Ulupalakua Ranch encompasses Auwahi, to participate in an experiment. Together they constructed a ten-acre “exclosure”—a rectangular fenced area that excluded cattle, goats, deer, and pigs. And they sprayed that ten acres with herbicide to destroy the kikuyu grass—an imported grazing plant that chokes out all others.

Those steps alone could maybe suffice to allow a natural system to restore itself. But not at Auwahi. The original trees are too scattered and geriatric. So Art asked for volunteer planters to start these steep mountain caravans and begin reversing two centuries of environmental collapse.

Here are two statements that I have heard many times from Art Medeiros. One: “They said to me, ‘You are [expletive deleted] nuts, brah!’” Two: “It is okay to fail. It is not okay not to try. What are you going to say when your grandchildren come to you and ask, ‘Why didn't you even try?’”

I thought, “Who the hell built a botanical garden up here?” Then I realized. We did.

The last trip I made to Auwahi with the Saturday morning volunteers, bouncing up the high slopes for what seemed like an hour—the travel time must be far less, but I always lose touch with the clock on these mind-bending excursions—we parked by a fence with plants crowding and pushing against the boundary. On the other side of the fence line, treetops were whipping gleefully in the winds. I thought immediately: “Who the hell built a botanical garden up here?” Then in an instant I realized.

We did.

You can see Auwahi on Google Earth—a ten-acre rectangle of exuberant foliage against an otherwise bitten-to-nothing rockscape. A grove of reclaimed forest.

But Google Earth is actually out of touch, because it shows only what we now call Auwahi One. The next exclosure, Auwahi Two, twenty-three acres in size, has just this month been planted to its capacity. Art and his mainly volunteer staff are talking about bringing some of the rare elements back to Auwahi One—the ferns, for example, that can’t thrive without a “locked-in” forest canopy.

“With the ferns,” Art told me, “we begin a march back in time. People think that I know the Hawaiian dryland forest. But now, every year, we march back to a forest I am increasingly unfamiliar with.”

A visiting biologist has discovered a lovely white spider that lives only in the Auwahi forest. A bright red native bird, the endangered ‘apapane, has returned on it own to Auwahi. Art described the sighting as “almost a religious experience.”

“None of this could have happened without the Erdmans,” says Art. “They are the greatest. At one point they actually asked me, ‘Are we doing enough?’” You won’t find anyone to answer that question in the negative, not since late 2009, when the Erdmans gave the Maui Coastal Land Trust a conservation easement to more than 11,000 of its pastoral acres, including the Auwahi groves. Their gift permits agricultural pursuits on the land but bans development in perpetuity.

Success at Auwahi has inspired a dozen or so other major landholders of these dramatic, dry mountain slopes (including Haleakala National Park) to form the Leeward Haleakala Watershed Restoration Partnership. The group intends to regrow native forest on more than 43,000 acres of what is presently stark pastureland.

These partners are not simply idealistic about saving rare plants and critters. They have practical ideas about the health of the land. The forest would yield valuable hardwoods. (Think koa, which is the mother of these dryland forests.) It would create job opportunities and supply the physical materials for traditional Hawaiian cultural practices. And it would raise the water table for a major part of the island, bringing rainfall back to now-parched hillsides, perhaps even regenerating the na‘ulu clouds that old-timers say used to feed not only Haleakala’s kula (mid-elevation) slopes, but also the hills of Kaho‘olawe. Art Medeiros is also envisioning a museum from which a school program would emanate.

And why not? Auwahi Three is already underway—151 acres for the new increment. The forest is growing again. Get yourself some good boots. This is the best experience you will find anywhere on earth to undestroy the natural order. You have something better to do on your day off?

To volunteer for an Auwahi service trip, call 572-4471 or email auwahi@yahoo.com. You will need ankle-high hiking boots, raingear, layered clothing, two liters of water, lunch, and sunscreen. High-clearance, four-wheel-drive vehicles are most welcome.

2010 Environmental Heroes - Maui Magazine - March-April 2010 - Maui, Hawaii

2010-03-07T10:57:00.000-08:00

2010 Environmental Heroes - Maui Magazine - March-April 2010 - Maui, Hawaii

Meet seven Maui residents who display a heroic commitment to our island's environment.
Story by Sara Smith, Jen Aly, Teya Penniman, Susanne Gnagy, Matthew Fullmer and Rita Goldman

They protect endangered species, preserve the wilderness, and reverse the harm we humans do to land and sea. Heck, they’re even impervious to kryptonite.

What turns an ordinary human into a champion of the environment?

The folks we highlight in these pages can’t leap tall buildings or bend steel in their bare hands. Only one or two wear special costumes when defending Mother Earth.

But they do share a remarkable power: They can see how enormous a job it is to save a planet, and instead of becoming discouraged, grow enthusiastic at the myriad possibilities for making a difference. And through their conviction, in very different ways, they’re showing the rest of us that we can, too.

The Stewards
Last Thanksgiving, the Erdman family gave Maui something to truly be thankful for: permanently protecting more than 11,000 acres of ‘Ulupalakua Ranch from future development.

Pardee and Betsy Erdman purchased the ranch in 1963. In time, sons Christian and Sumner got involved; the latter now serves as ranch president. As if running a viable ranching operation in Hawai‘i weren’t challenging enough, the Erdmans practice a holistic approach to stewardship that includes proper pasture management, invasive-species eradication, extensive reforestation efforts, and revitalizing the watershed.

It’s a formidable task, encompassing 18,000 acres that stretch from shoreline to an elevation of 6,000 feet and span three different ecological zones. The Erdmans succeed, in part, through innovation.

“We’re always focusing on the next problem,” says Pardee. To stay ahead of ever-changing invasive weeds, the Erdmans use a system called managed multispecies grazing. Rotating cattle, sheep, horses, and goats—which have different palates and eating habits—can help keep down weeds such as Sacramento burr and fireweed. Plus, hungry livestock reduce fire potential by devouring overgrown vegetation. This protects the maturing native ecosystems, which reciprocate by improving the water and mineral cycles—a symbiotic relationship that is key to the Erdmans’ balanced land-management strategy.

The Erdmans also collaborate with ten different private, federal, state, and county conservation agencies and organizations. Their most enduring partnership is with Dr. Art Medeiros of the U.S. Geological Service, who heads the Auwahi reforestation project—the state’s most successful restoration of native dryland reforestation—all of it on ‘Ulupalakua Ranch land.

In 2003, the Erdmans joined another Medeiros project: the Leeward Haleakala Watershed Restoration Partnership, a collaboration of the region’s major landholders to restore more than 43,000 acres of native forests. The goal: to preserve habitat for many of Hawai‘i’s endangered plants and animals, and improve the health of the watershed. Native koa trees, for instance, are very important because their sickle-shaped leaves point down, ensuring that captured mist condenses into water that drips to the ground. The partnership’s efforts are working. “The water and mineral cycle has improved,” Sumner confirms.

Now, working with Maui Coastal Land Trust, the Erdmans have established an agricultural easement that will preserve 11,000 acres in perpetuity as a working ranch and native wildlife habitat. The easement includes one of Maui’s most iconic views—the glorious stretch of pastureland mauka (upslope) of Wailea—and all of Auwahi.

“This is the largest-ever voluntary-easement donation in Hawai‘i, a true gift for future generations of Maui,” says Dale Bonar, executive director of the Maui Coastal Land Trust. “The Erdmans have a strong love for the land . . . a decades-long commitment to conservation.”

If Sumner has his way, it won’t stop there. “It goes beyond just our family,” he says. “We hope to lead by example.”—Sara Smith

Images From a Pinhole Camera

2009-11-29T17:45:00.000-08:00

These images were taken with a pinhole camera made out of a paintcan. The lens for this paintcan camera is actually a small hole drilled into the side of the can- about the size of a pinhole. I used photographic paper instead of film for this particular camera, placed it inside the paintcan, then shut the lid tight. I used a flexible magnet to cover the pinhole until I found the image I wanted to catch. Then I set the can on a sturdy surface, made sure the hole was pointing at what I wanted to photograph, and I removed the magnet for an exposure time of around 8 minutes. Put the magnet back over the pinhole and made a B-line for the darkroom to develop the image.

Here is another interesting landscape image taken with a paintcan pinhole camera. The exposure time was approx.15 minutes. Notice the infinite depth of field typical of this type of lensless photography.

Culture Verses Nature

2009-10-23T23:58:00.000-07:00

Maui’s first co-educational high school opened in 1913 in a small frame building at Hamakuapoko, close to bustling Paia town and near the large plantation camps of East Maui. From the start, Maui High School provided an opportunity for boys and girls to further their education in academic and vocational fields, and enabled thousands of graduates to realize their dreams of achievement and success.

As enrollment rapidly grew, noted Hawaii architect Charles W. Dickey was chosen to design a large and inspiring school building, taking advantage of the site’s climate, landscape and views. In 1921 the concrete, mission-style administration and classroom building was opened, at a cost of $66,000. Over the years, many more classrooms were added to the 24 acre campus, as well as teachers’ cottages, a gymnasium, an agricultural complex, athletic fields and a cafeteria. Students came from surrounding communities, central Maui and Upcountry, often by horseback, via Kahului Railroad trains or buses, or over the well-worn footpaths from neighboring plantation camps.

By 1939 enrollment reached 1000, but began to steadily decline after Baldwin High School was built and plantation camps closed as families moved to modern subdivisions in central Maui. In 1972 a new Maui High School opened in Kahului. The old Maui High closed its doors, beginning years of decline and deterioration.

I recently went to this site to photograph the decaying building and adjacent structures- the old Maui Sugar Mill, with its forest successfully regenerating and its massive ficus roots,trunks and branches insistent on breaking through all the concrete is an impressive process and a very beautiful place to visit. I thought it was interesting to compare my color photographs in 2009 with these old 1920-30's black and white photos of this area when it was first constructed.

The Old Maui High School is a significant part of Maui’s history. The Friends of Old Maui High School are working with government and private groups to develop a preservation plan, obtain funding and eventually rehabilitate the Dickey-designed building. http://oldmauihigh.org/

Photos of Old Maui High School and the Old Haiku Mill

Ko'olau Forest Reserve

2009-07-08T00:32:00.000-07:00

I caught some beautiful images here as we went botanizing in the Ko'olau forest reserve on Maui with wildlife biologist Fern Duvall and the Native Hawaiian Plant Society. We entered the forest from the top of Olinda Rd., approximately 6,200 feet elevation and hiked in from there for about a mile or two. It went from hot, dry and sunny, as we walked and slowly changed to misty, cool and muddy. By the time we reached the first bridge, my camera was dripping wet!! Time to put it away, but did manage to photograph some rare and peculiar native Hawaiian plant species; clermontias, ferns- a'mau, repeatedly forking ferns- Sticherus?, native geraniums, mountain naupaka, ohelo, tropical hydrangeas' to name a few and a dominant tree line of ohia.

The upper forest zone of Ko'olau heads up towards Haleakala's northern slope and is cut into many gorges, the biggest of these is the outlet at Keanae, called Ko'olau Gap. Ko'olau, which means 'windward,' catches the rain clouds and squeezes out about 80in of rain annually on the coast and a mighty 200in to 300in up the slopes. No surprise - that makes for awesome waterfalls as the rainwater rushes down the reserve's abundant gulches and streams.

The Lost Art of Photogravure

2009-06-24T00:26:00.000-07:00

AT ITS ORGIN, photography was intimately linked with printmaking. Some folks had been experimenting with light-sensitive materials since the 1810s. Their efforts were motivated by the desire to make stable fixed images directly from nature, or to make "etchings by light."

Photogravure is not a purely photographic medium. Photogravure is a chameleon, encompassing many manifestations of printmaking using a variety of darkroom and etching techniques, and is therefore hard to classify.

It often surprises people that the inventor of photography on paper, William Henry Fox Talbot, was also the father of photogravure... For Talbot, photogravure had been the logical evolution of his original invention of photography; transforming nature's sketches into permanent and beautiful printer's ink.

In photogravure, the fragile silver salts of normal photography are transcribed in the photogravure process with printing ink. This process adds to an appreciated esthetic improvement, the tonal and tactile qualities and the guarantee of absolute permanence. These values have always been recognized as famous photographers of the early 1900's such as Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Paul Strand adopted photogravure with enthusiasm in Camera Notes and Camera Work. It ceased being used after the Second World War because of its cost. It is only recently that a few workshops have revived this old and marvelous process.

"The quality of touch in it's deepest living sense is inherent in my photographs. When that sense of touch is lost, the heartbeat of the photograph is extinct- dead. My interest is in the living" ~ALFRED STIEGLITZ FROM TWICE A YEAR 1938

I recently attended a three day intensive workshop in copper plate Photogravure, thus demystifying the process for me. We started out with an 8"x10" positive image (obtained from a digital image file or scanned negative) on transparency film and used photoshop and a printer to do this. After our image was printed out as a positive, we were ready to begin the very elegant, artful process.

THE FIRST STEP in making a photogravure print is preparing the printing plate. This pure copper plate must be thoroughly cleaned, its surface highly polished, and its edges beveled (to avoid damaging the paper during printing).

WHILE THE PLATE IS BEING READIED, the image is also prepared. A positive transparency is made from either an original negative or a copy negative. This film positive, which must be made the size desired for the final print, is then contact-printed under ultraviolet light to a gelatin-coated paper (known as carbon tissue) which was previously made light sensitive by soaking it in a solution of potassium bichromate, then dried. In this process, the action of the light through the film positive changes the melting temperature of the gelatin. Areas exposed to light have a higher melting temperature and are said to be "hardened" and less exposed areas stay the same.

NEXT THE IMAGE must be transferred to the prepared copper plate. The image-carrying tissue is adhered to the plate. This tissue/plate is then soaked in hot water softening the gelatin and allowing the paper base of the tissue to separate. Portions of the gelatin that received little or no light during exposure to the transparency remain soluble and slowly wash away, leaving a gelatin image that will act as an acid resist when the plate is etched. The gelatin image on the copper plate, now called a resist, is then dried.

NEXT THE PLATE IS placed in a succession of etching baths. Etching begins in sequence in proportion to the thickness of the gelatin coating and the viscosity of the mordant (Ferric Chloride) bath. The viscosity of the Ferric Chloride controls the speed with which the solution penetrates the gelatin. The result is a plate with many minute reservoirs or cells of varying depths. During printing, the deeper cells hold more ink and thus transfer more ink to the paper, creating the darker areas of the image

FINALLY, AFTER THE PLATE has been thoroughly washed, the gravure is printed - on an etching press, like all other forms of intaglio printing. Stiff ink is spread over the entire plate and worked into the recessed areas that form the image. The plate is then positioned face-up on an etching press. The artist places a piece of dampened, high-quality paper over the plate then covers the paper with etching felts for padding and passes this through the press. The rollers force the paper into the small depressions that hold the ink, creating a printed image. To make the next impression, the artist re-inks the plate and repeats the process. At the end of the printing session, the plate is thoroughly cleaned.

This procedure produces "grain" gravures, so called because of the random dots created by the dusted rosin. Photogravure is a time-consuming, labor-intensive, costly process used today by fine-art photographer-printmakers.

References and quotes: http://www.photogravure.com/about/index.html

Art & Science- Anna Atkins Cyanotypes

2009-06-07T00:04:00.000-07:00

"Botanical illustration is often seen as a gap between art and science, not properly belonging to either", as mentioned in American Scientist Nov/Dec 2004.

The work of Anna Atkins is surely striking; she is well known for her amazing, Prussian blue-and-white cyanotype prints of seaweeds in her book published in 1843 on British Algae. Cyanotype is an early photographic printing process using the sunlight for contact printing actual objects as photograms on paper. Although Atkins was a competant watercolorist and draughtsman for botanical illustration, she brilliantly applied the cyanotype process to solve the difficulties of making accurate drawings of scientific specimens and self-published the first installment of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions.

Cyanotype is labeled now as an alternative photographic process used by many artists today. I have been playing around with sunprinting using cyanotype chemicals on silk material and also my handmade papers and am totally inspired by the work of Anna Atkins.

As an approach to my own work as an Artist and Arborist, I am always looking for interesting ways to bridge the gap between art and science. Since Hawaii is my home and happens to be the extinction capital of the world, I feel motivated to produce a botanical series of endangered native Hawaiian plant species using the same cyanotype techniques as Atkins. I am having alot of fun with it and noticed some technical things about contact printing cyanotypes; the fresher the specimen, the more translucent the image becomes. It has a sort of an x-ray or MRI type of translucency that is stunningly beautiful against that Prussian blue backround. They are accurate plant depictions and unarguably gorgeous!

Photo's of: Cyanotype photograms made by Atkins which was part of her 1843 book, British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions

The Dunes Of Mo'omomi

2009-04-22T23:28:00.000-07:00

"AT FIRST GLANCE the dunes of Mo'omomi appear nearly barren. The far cliffs of Mokio are dim in the salt haze, and arid scrub-wind whipped into curious forms-clings tenaciously to the sandy soils. And yet the site is rich in life; indeed, it is a last refuge for Hawaiian coastal vegetation. Within vast, integrated communities of nearly undisturbed native grasses and shrubs grow more rare coastal species than any other single place in the islands. What remains at Mo'omomi is a vestige of a major Hawaiian coastal ecosystem, a holdover from an ancient era.

Here, the shrubby ocean naupaka (Scaevola sericea- the most common of the islands' native coastal plants-shares the coastal strand with a beach morning glory (Ipomoea pescaprae), and with a mix of less frequently seen endemic Hawaiian plants. Carpets of rolling 'aki'aki grasslands provide a stabilized bed in the shifting dunes for a rare native nightshade, Solanum nelsoni.

In exposed patches of red volcanic soil, an endangered beach legume, the 'ohai (Sesbania tomentosa) flaunts its brilliant red flowers set on low-lying branches that seem espaliered by the wind against a backdrop of rocky terrain. No fewer than five globally endangered plant species make their last stand at Mo'omomi.

Among these is a native Gnaphalium, called 'ena'ena by the Hawaiians, that punctuates the sandstone plain with radient white foliage. Its succulent leaves are thickly covered with fine, sun reflecting hairs-a protective strategy common in the parched flats of Mo'omomi.

Another native plant, a heliotrope, forms silvery mats in the lee of consolidated dune crests. Its whorled, diminutive leaves also are clothed with delicate reflective hairs. The heliotrope's Hawaiian name, hinahina, evokes an image of the moon rising fully over an ocean horizon. (In Hawaiian mythology, the moon embodied a goddess, Hina-the mother of the island of Molokai. It seems appropriate that the island chain's best examples of hinahina occur on Molokai.)

Heliotropium growing with Nama sandwicensis, endemic to the Hawaiian Islands and the only member of the Hydrophyllaceae that grows on the archipelago. Its flowers are tiny and dark lavender in color.

Other plants to be found here include the Hawaiian endemic Chamaesyce degeneri, which the Hawaiians call `akoko or just koko. This species belongs to the Euphorbiaceae.

Also abundant among the sand banks is the Hawaiian endemic Lipochaeta integrifolia (Asteraceae). This island endemic genus, referred to in general as nehe in Hawaiian, is represented in the islands by some 20 species.

It is difficult to picture the ancient dry forest that once stood where Mo'omomi's dunes now hold sway. But, from what we know of remnant low-land dry forests at other sites in the Hawaiian islands, a diverse blending of trees with no single dominant species might have existed. Here in the dappled sunlight beneath the forest canopy, honks of giant flightless geese once joined the chorus of the ocean waves. Today the dunes and their specialized flora distinguish Mo'omomi, and the sands have preserved the area's singular fossils and artifacts...

The coastline of the Hawaiian islands perhaps have seen more change than any other biological zone in the entire chain. No wonder so many people regard saving Mo'omomi as a rare opportunity to preserve a living portion of the past for the future. The Hawaiian green sea turtles attempting to recolonize here are a hopeful sign that the coastal dunes can endure, even recover, if we acknowledge their significance with action." ~Samuel M. Gon III, The Dunes of Mo'omomi, article featured in The Nature Conservancy News Feb/March 1987

Photo's by: Bruce A. Bohm
Photo of 'ohai by: Kim & Forest Starr

Paper Sculpture Portfolio

2008-12-11T09:52:00.000-08:00

"Maliko Gulch" 13 1/2 x 6 x 3- Handmade papers cast over a winter melon and embellished with layered leaves sewn up each side and unspun sheeps wool to finish off the rim.

" ipu heke 'ole" 15 1/2 x 14 x 12- Decorated paper vessel handcast from a Hawaiian gourd once used as a drum to accompany the Hula dance.

Embellished with seeds sewn up each side and unspun silk fibers finishes off the rim.

"Stilt Basket" 15 x 5 1/2 x 4 1/2- Paper vessel handcast from a honeydew melon, positioned on bamboo stilts and embellished with dyed orange fibers.

"Medicine Bowl" 7 x 7 1/4 x 8 1/2- Paper vessel handcast from a squash. A 4 piece plaster of paris mould was needed to cast the elaborate shape of the squash. Unspun tresses of camel hair adorn the rim.

Hand Cast Paper Sculptures

2008-12-05T12:04:00.000-08:00

Hand cast paper bowl.

Another view of the paper bowl.

After much deliberation, my handmade paper bowls, vessels and sculptures are starting to manifest. I had some technical difficulties along the way and the weather was counteractive in the drying process. But here we are.

With my handsaw and clippers I ventured into the wilderness to harvest some of the grasses, leaves, flower stalks and inner bark from the plants and trees that I would be needing. I collect only from plants that are growing in abundance and have plenty to share.

Then the cooking process- about 6 -8 hours simmering on an outdoor burner in a caustic solution, then to rinse and wash in preparation for the relentless beating of the fibers. Each batch of cooked plants is beaten with a wooden mallot on a wooden cutting board for approximately 4 hours. The beaten fibers are then further cut up into smaller pieces and small handfuls are put into a kitchen blender with water and blended, repeating the blending process about 15-20x or until an entire vat is filled with pulp. Using my papermaking screen and deckle, sheets of wet papers are lifted out of the vat and set aside.

Meanwhile, in the weeks previous, was the production of the plaster of paris moulds. For several weeks I would bring my equipment down to the beach- a bucket, the plaster powder, a couple of gourds, squashes and other fruits that have interesting shapes......I would bury the gourd halfway into the damp beach sand, mix the plaster in my bucket using ocean water and pour the mixture over the gourd, wait 1 hour to set up and then flip it over and pour plaster on the other side. Wait a week or so for both sides to be really dry before pulling it apart and releasing the gourd inside.

After The mould is bone dry I can use it for casting the wet sheets of paper inside its hollow gourd shaped shell. I prepare my handmade papers and while the papers are still wet, I press the paper pulp into the inside of the plaster mould. I use many different kinds of papers to get different tones and textures. And finally when the papers inside the mould are dried, I pull the 2 piece mould apart and waa laa! release a handmade paper vessel, a paper replica of the model that was used to make the mould.

In this little piece pictured above, my husband holds up a paper replica of a pomegranite! The plant materials that I used to make the papers that went into this little bowl are, spider lily stalks, bird of paradise flower stalks, trunk of a banana plant, and the dark brown flecks are dried philodendron flower sheaths. I also put a PVA glue substance into the paper pulp vat so that when the paper piece dries it will be hardened. It looks delicate, but really, it is quite hard and durable. They are rustic and full of imperfections but the qualities of the plants really shine through, like swirling fibers captured in the moment. I have more of these paper pieces to come- some much larger and more intricate and plan on displaying in some local galleries and opening up another shop on 1000 Markets that will be called Fine Art and Fiber.
Thanks for visiting! Aloha!

Arbor Day

2008-11-22T14:40:00.000-08:00

Wiliwili, Erythrina sandwicensis

Arbor Day is a day to recognize and plant trees. Trees are the most massive, longest lived, and tallest organisms ever to inhabit earth. Trees support more communities of living things than any other organism on earth. Trees are our greatest natural resource. Did you know that each state has their own month and date set aside to celebrate Arbor Day? I didn't know this until recently. November is the month that we celebrate Arbor Day in Hawaii, usually the second saturday of the month.

The Maui Nui Botanical Gardens hosts the celebration on Maui and in honor of the event, actually give away many hundreds of trees. And these are not just trees, they are all indigenous, some endemic and endangered Hawaiian species that are for the most part rare and hard to find. The Maui Nui Botanical Gardens is a happening place. Their mission stems from everything that is good and life giving with an invite to all in the participation of environmental awareness and tender stewardship of the Hawaiian Islands. You don't want to miss the video on their website;

http://www.mnbg.org/home.html

The first Arbor Day in the United States took place on April 10, 1872 in Nebraska. It was the brainchild of Julius Sterling Morton (1832-1902), a Nebraska journalist and politician originally from Michigan. He felt that Nebraska's landscape and economy would benefit from the wide-scale planting of trees; he proposed that a special day be set aside for tree planting and increasing awareness of the importance of trees. The holiday reached the federal level in 1970 when President Nixon proclaimed the last Friday in April as National Arbor Day.

A Celebration Of Tree Planters Around The World:

Arbor Day is also celebrated in other countries including Australia. Variations are celebrated as 'Greening Week' of Japan, 'The New Year's Days of Trees' in Israel, 'The Tree-loving Week' of Korea, 'The Reforestation Week' of Yugoslavia, 'The Students' Afforestation Day' of Iceland and 'The National Festival of Tree Planting' in India.

This is the first time in our history that the world has a common concern; our environment. One of my favorite notations is reguarding Wangari Maathai, known as the "Tree Woman" of Kenya, founder of the Green Belt Movement, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2004, responsible for the planting of over 30 million trees, “Peace on earth depends on our ability to secure our living environment.”

Tension

2008-11-15T09:07:00.000-08:00

Original Oil crayon drawing on Rives BFK hotpress drawing paper 19" x 24"
This is one of a series of drawings that I did in the early '80's after reading newspaper articles concerning the tension in the middle east.

"All art can be placed somewhere along a political spectrum, supporting one set of class interests or another, actively or passively, at the very least supporting existing conditions by ignoring other possibilities, silence giving consent." M. Stevens

Watercolor Drawings

2008-11-08T16:40:00.000-08:00

Original watercolor drawing; part of a series of watercolor studies, I really enjoy doing figure drawings using a model.

I have another new on line shop at 1000 Markets. The vendors sell a nice variety of arts & craft, jewelry, clothing, furniture, fine art, fancy homemade chocolates, coffee, cheeses and produce! It is a bustling high quality marketplace. I have the rest of this watercolor set already featured and for sale;
http://www.1000markets.com/shops/smokyglow

Please stop bye.

Paper Samples

2008-11-06T22:59:00.000-08:00

Beautiful papers made from various plants; hibiscus, philodendron and spider lily.

Papers from various plants grouped together. The light brown paper on top of the pile is a piece of tapa. Tapa is a polynesian word for bark cloth. Tapa is made from the inner bark of plants and trees. The inner bark is obtained by peeling off the outer bast or bark, soaking and pounding the fibers until the bark piece becomes very soft and the fibers have spread out to the desired size of cloth. Its very similar to making handmade papers except tht with tapa there is no cooking involved. For this little piece of tapa, I used the inner bark from a Ficus or Banyan tree and pounded the piece with a wooden meat tenderizer.

A very loose, lacy, fibrous brown paper made from the cooked and pounded leaf sheaths of a philodendron plant paired together with the soft, blotterlike white papers made from the inner bark of Hibiscus.

Useful Uses For Handmade Paper

2008-11-06T22:35:00.000-08:00

The handmade papers on the left are folded into envelopes and used as very rustic stationary. The envelopes have two paper layers, the white paper for the base layer is made from the bast fibers or the stripped inner bark of hibiscus branches. Each branch is cut, peeled and cooked. Hibiscus paper is naturally very white and soft like cotton. The second layer of paper is made from a mixture of different plant fibers, the dominant brown flecks come from the shed leaf sheaths of a Monstera plant. The leaf sheaths are reddish to dark brown in color. The fibers are very coarse and really hard to break down. I love the effects from this plant, the papers have a really lacy look to them and are a great combination layered with papers made from softer, blotterlike fibers such as hibiscus.

Papermaking from Plants

2008-10-31T00:19:00.000-07:00

Bird of Paradise plant

Cooked and washed Bird of Paradise fibers on a wooden cutting board, ready for the beating process.

These lovely handmade papers are made entirely from a Bird of Paradise plant. I harvested the stalks and leaves, cut them up into pot sized lengths and cooked the plant pieces in water with 1/4 cup washing soda for about 6 hours.

After the cooking, I washed the fibers till they came clean using a paint strainer and then beat the fibers with a wooden mallot on a wooden cutting board. Beating the fibers took approximately 3 hours.

After beating, the fibers were further pulverized in a kitchen blender and finally poured into a papermaking vat, then using my screen and deckle, lifted into sheets of paper and transferred onto glass windows to dry.

There are many things to do with papers like these. I like to use them in bookbinding and when making my handmade paper journals. I also use the papers for making three dimensional sculptures, when I do my cast paper pieces- I take dampened sheets of paper or straight paper pulp and press into a plaster of paris mould. I also love to combine my basketry and papermaking; one technique is to dip a freshly woven basket into a vat of paper pulp, as the paper pulp dries it shrinks into all of the indents from the pattern of the weave creating sort of a tight outer skin. The effect is very interesting, it makes the vessel look like it was dug from some ancient ruin. I also prepare the papers with photo sensitive chemicals and print my photographs onto the papers, this technique can get real interesting and I'm still experimenting with different types of alternative photo techniques.

I've been working hard on my botanical photo series which many of will be printed on papers made from all different plants.

Cordage & Basketry

2008-10-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

This tiny basket is not much bigger than my thumbnail. I wove a series of necklaces made from different strands, twisted and braided cordages that were made out of the inner bark of different plants. Some of the baskets had lids on them. This is the only one I have left, it is made from Hau bush.

Fiber Art Project, Making Cordage

2008-10-24T09:34:00.001-07:00

Pictured here are the beautiful golden pink colors of the inner bark of Hau, Hibiscus tiliaceus. One of the canoe plants of ancient Hawaii.

"Seeds and cuttings of hau were brought by early Polynesian voyagers to Hawai`i Nei, and planted by the settlers...and is held in high regard for its usefulness to the traditional life of oceanic people.

Hau grows well near the ocean, streams, and in moist sloping areas up to the 2000 foot elevation. This shrub spreads to form a creeping jungle of interwoven, curved and twisted springy arching branches.

Hau cordage, called `ili hau, provided tying material used daily. The cordage is made by cutting off stems and younger smooth branches, making a slit lengthwise and removing the bark with the hands. The bark strips are then soaked. When the outer bark is slipped off, remaining are cream-colored smooth fibers for braiding and twisting into cordage. Hau cordage provided ropes for hauling and many other needs. Hau is a true hibiscus. The bright yellow flowers have reddish centers and as the day goes by, the flower changes color to orange and then to reddish-brown, before it falls off the plant, usually by the next morning."

http://www.canoeplants.com/hau.html

A dye color can be made by collecting and cooking the flowers when they are yellow. It yields a most surprizing robins eggshell, baby blue color. I add this dye color to my paper pulp vat when I am lifting sheets of handmade paper. The papers have a beautiful soft blue color.

The photo above show strands of Hau that I harvested, stripped, soaked and set out to dry in preparation to make cordage. I use the hand twisted or braided cordage for bookbinding and as embellishment for my sculptures.

Museum Forest

2008-10-16T19:19:00.000-07:00

"Growing on the lava fields of Auwahi land of Kahikinui, southern slopes of Mt. Haleakala, Maui; elevation 2600 feet,... about seven miles from Ulupalakua, is a small area of forest on the lava fields of Auwahi. Unpromising as it looks from the road, this forest is botanically, nevertheless, one of the richest in the territory".
~Joseph Rock in the year 1913

At the present time, the forest at Auwahi is sometimes described as a museum forest because so little of it remains as a result of severe degradation brought on by human activities and now without action is threatened with total extirpation on Maui.
" Auwahi is a biological and ethnobotanical treasure. Of the 50-odd species of rare Hawaiian trees found here, 41 species had specific Hawaiian ethnobotanical uses, 19 as medicines, 13 in making specific tools, 13 in canoe construction, eight in kapa making, eight to make widely ranging dye colors, and at least seven of the trees have religious significance. Without our efforts, all of these trees, their uses, their associated animals will all perish forever".
~http://www.hear.org/naturalareas/auwahi/index.html

The Auwahi Restoration Group is a coalition of private and public agencies and a group of concerned community citizens working together in a historic effort to try and save a Hawaiian forest by planting and weeding exclosures in order to "jumpstart" this unique ecosystem.

The Mighty Silversword Allience

2008-10-10T22:30:00.000-07:00

" Imagine you are a mere California tarweed seed, hoisted in the air and blown by a restless wind 3,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean. By some lucky chance, you fall onto the new soil of the Hawaiian Islands. You have found plant heaven- little competition and few predators. You settle into your new home, shed now useless barbs, thorns and propellers and over tens of thousands of years, you creep up mountains and into valleys, evolving into thirty species filling every niche you stumble upon. From a lowly tarweed with wanderlust, you have grown into the mighty Silversword Allience.
This story describes many of the plant and animal species found in Hawai'i before the arrival of humans. For 70 million years, these islands evolved in isolation. On the average, a single species every 35,000 years survived the journey and successfully established itself here. They came in the muddy feet of seabirds, marooned atop ocean debris, and in strong gusts of wind which span oceans. After arriving they began to evolve. Adapting to their new home-an island chain boasting of ecological zones from rainforest to alpine desert- the first Hawaiian residents developed new, fascinating characteristics distinguishing them from their ancestors. A rather drab looking finch evolved into forty species of spectacular honeycreepers. The radically curved bill of the I'iwi perfectly fits into the blossom of another pioneer, the lobelia. This phenomenon, an example of adaptive radiation, makes Hawai'i an unparalleled showcase for evolutionary study."
~Shannon Wianecki author of the Maui Time Weekly article entitled The Lee Altenberg Project Replanting Ancient Hawaii
http://www.mauitime.com/v06iss13/index.html
http://dynamics.org/Altenberg/

When photographing native Hawaiian flora my motive is to share the beauty, and features of each species and their unique relationship to the particular geology in this island chain, but also bring awareness to the heartbrake being felt because of the loss of a huge percent of its endemic species in recent years. The images hopefully bring to the viewer some sort of an understanding, connection, a call to action or at the very least, just a glimpse of something they may never be able to see with their own eyes because of the issue of extinction.

Arboreal Disneyland

2008-10-06T20:39:00.000-07:00

The Wiliwili, Erythrina sandwicensis, is the feature of native lowland vegetation up to 1,500 feet. It thrives in the hottest and driest districts on the leeward sides of all the islands. This wiliwili is growing in the dryforest at Pu'u o kali, the lava fields on the southern slopes of Haleakala, Maui. Native wiliwili trees are a keystone species in Hawaii's lowland dry forest, one of the most endangered ecosystems in the world.

Unfortunately, an invasion of a recently-introduced insect to the Hawaiian Islands has infested the leaves of the native wiliwili trees seriously affecting the health and perhaps even the existence of the wiliwili tree.

In August of 2005 a small group of photographers ventured into the wiliwili forest at Pu'u o kali in order to photo document these trees in their healthy state before they succumbed to the ravages of insect damage. And these are just a few of the images I was able to catch. Pu'u o kali has been appropriately described an arboreal Disneyland, "a kaleidascope forest of fairy-tale trees with bark that glows and blossoms that glitter". My first photo shoot using digital equipment instead of my faithful nikon FM2 film camera.