Night Guardian

During our first summer living in Lanikai (2006) we hired a local landscape crew to trim and clean up our overgrown upper terrace garden. After their work was completed I noticed that someone had placed a small rock upon another rock. After a few days it seemed to resemble Blessed Damien of Molokai.

His eyes gaze towards the heavens. His cape drapes his shoulders.

Story of Damien

Blessed Damien was the Roman Catholic priest from Belgium who ministered to people afflicted with Hansen's disease (leprosy) on the island of Molokai. He will become Saint Damien this October.

His life touched the poor and the powerful. Fans of Damien included the author Robert Louis Stevenson who spent 8 days visiting Molokai in 1890. Another admirer was Mahatma Gandhi who was inspired by Damien's deeds, altruism and spiritual heroism. Today the Damien Clinic in Shantinagar, India treats patients with Hansen's disease.

His story has been turned into a play and a movie. Various books have been written about him including Holy Man: Father Damien of Molokai by Gavan Daws.

At the State of Hawaii's Capitol Building there is a modern style bronze statue of Damien by Marisol Escobar, a student of Hans Hofmann.


Our "Damien" was created from pohaku (stacked stones). Pohaku are not inanimate objects. Certain stones are sacred, some are used in healing and others serve as guardians. Our pohaku appears to be sacred in many ways.

Ingeborg

Click on the portrait for a larger view.

We just received this painting of Ingeborg from Kathleen's step-sister. Although this painting is not signed, we think it was painted by Louise Crow (1891-1968). We already have a portrait of Ingeborg, Kathleen's step-mother, that was painted by Louise Crow.

Louise Crow lived in Seattle before opening a studio in Santa Fe in 1918. As a young woman Ingeborg lived with her parents in Seattle. Later, Ingeborg acted in Broadway plays including The Drum Begins, a 1933 production by George Abbott and Philip Dunning and as Titania in Max Reinhardt's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Ingeborg also preformed in the 1938 Lux Radio Theater production The Green Light. She was later the co-owner of the Hollywood photography studio, Green and Tillisch Company.

During the1950's Ingeborg was head of public relations for Neiman Marcus in Texas. She was responsible for creating the corporate butterfly logo, still in use today, from Alexander Calder's Mariposa mobile that was commissioned for a new Neiman Marcus store in Dallas.

Her life journey continued into other creative pursuits...

Kaoli Awa inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe

In 1939 Georgia O'Keeffe spent three months in Hawaii on assignment to paint pineapples for Dole. While she never got around to the pineapples she was inspired by the beauty of the islands.

“If my painting is what I have to give back to the world for what the world gives to me, I may say that these paintings are what I have to give at present for what three months in Hawai‘i gave to me.”
An American Place exhibition statement 1940

It is possible to have an O'Keeffe inspiration each time we drive from Lanikai to Honolulu on the Pali Highway. The mountains in O'Keefee's Papaya Tree - Iao Valley are very similar to the green cliffs of the Koolau range.






O'Keeffe continued her exploration of flowers in Hawaii. While in New Mexico she painted many versions of the White Trumpet Flower.

Her close focus on the reproductive parts could be called flower pornography.

Her work has inspired many artists. I have used the macro feature of my new camera to focus details of our Hawaiian landscape.



















Kathleen spotted a small light blue koali awa behind our house. I took a close up photograph and created a digital watercolor image.

Click on the kaoli awa for a larger view.

We worked together to adjust the image so that the light and reflected light pull your eye into the depth of the flower.

Kaoli awa is a native Hawaiian morning glory that has been used for medicinal purposes.

Vigeland's Coconut Flower

It was over a year ago that we last trimmed our coconut tree. Among the 15 foot long leaves and green coconuts that rained down from the top of the tree were a few unopened flower sheaths. I looked inside one of them and saw the tightly packed coconut inflorescence. The male and female flowers fit together like a puzzle.

It made me think of The Monolith sculpture by Gustav Vigeland that I saw in Olso, Norway 45 years ago. Starting in 1927 three stone carvers spent fourteen years to transform a 46 foot tall block of granite into Vigeland's concept.


By comparison it takes just 26 months for a coconut flower to mature and break out of the sheath.

We trimmed our coconut tree again this month and I decided to explore my visual recollection of Vigeland's work as seen in a coconut flower. I used my new Canon G10 camera to get a close up of the flowers. In this view the male flowers are already released from the sheath. It is possible to see how tightly they fit together.

Click the coconut flower for a larger view.

There are different opinions about the meaning of The Monolith. We will not be sure if it represents humankind rising towards salvation, the struggle for existence or the transcendence of everyday life. Art should not have only one meaning.

As a pre-teen I was moved by Vigeland's many sculptures of children at Frogner Park including the Angry Boy. Time changes our perception of art. The interconnected mass of humanity united together in a column could represent the cycle of life as seen in a coconut flower or a cluster of humans clinging to these Hawaiian islands like opihi.

Snowbird Orchids

Click on the orchids for a larger view.

A neighbor of ours leaves Lanikai for the winter. In sort of a reverse snowbird fashion she migrates to the snow capped mountains. These orchids are a beautiful side effect of this yearly migration.

A few days before her flight, she delivered a zinc planter full of blooming orchid plants. We will care for them this winter. Since orchids are easy to grow in Hawaii, it might be possible for some to become jaded with so many beautiful orchids. I continue to be inspired.

Kathleen is reading Life Studies by Susan Veerland. It is a collection of stories about the impact of art on the life of ordinary people.

The Yellow Jacket, is about a Dutch painter working in Arles in 1888. A neighbor who has come to sit for a portrait wonders why would the artist have six paintings of sunflowers. The closed sunflowers remind Vincent van Gogh of small birds' nests back home and he wants to decorate his house. His friend was coming soon.

It is hard to say how many times the orchids will inspire. I expect to work on many more digital watercolors of our snowbird orchids.

Mysterious Hawaii

The book club's current selection is Murder Casts a Shadow by Victoria Kneubuhl which is published by University of Hawaii Press. It is set in 1930's Honolulu and is an enjoyable tale of another time and place.

It is somewhat similar to Earl Derr Biggers' book The House Without a Key which is newly reissued by Academy Chicago Publishers.


Kneubuhl's book makes one recall the writings of the poet/actor/author Don Blanding. Step-sister Melissa sent along two books by Blanding as a birthday present last year. They came from her late father's library in Sarasota, Florida.

Paradise Loot is autographed by Blanding (and has illustrations by John Kelly) and the other, Vagabond's House is a first edition.

Blanding dedicates Vagabond's House to:

". . . the restless ones
to all the gallant frantic fools
who follow the path of the sun
across blue waters

to distant mountains . . ."

Pick up a copy of any or all of these books. All are available in paperback.

Experience the days of pre-statehood Hawaii.

Baby Street

This is a poem by Don Blanding from 1928. In spite of a few racial epithets typical of the era, BABY STREET is indeed clairvoyant.

BABY STREET


A real street down Palama way in the tenement district of Honolulu.


I walk quite slowly down Baby Street,
Babies are everywhere . . . under my feet,
Sprawled on the sidewalks, perched on the walls,
Babies in dydies, in blue overalls,
Babies in rompers of flowered cretonne,
Babies with not much of anything on,
Little brown babies in brown mamas' laps,
Philippine babies, Koreans and Japs,
Fresh shiny babies right out of the tub,
Babies in scandalous need of a scrub,
Baby Hawaiians, the sons of a chief,
Rastus from Africa, black past belief,
Babies with yellow hair, babies with brown,
Babies with just a few patches of down,
Toddling babies on little bowed legs,
Very new babies, much balder than eggs,
Portuguese babies and Russians as well,
Babies whose ancestors no one can tell,
Toothless as turkeys, these tiny young tads,
But grinning as though they were dentifrice ads.

Walk very carefully . . . make your step hesitant.
One of these babies someday may be president.




It happened!