A Long Story Short

Last week was one of the best weeks of my life.

Once I was in the middle of it, the way that it had all come together blew me away; it continues to fascinate me and probably always will. Here I am, two months on Maui, and all of the sudden I find myself staying in a beautiful house on the foothills of the volcano Haleakala for free with a generous young woman from Philadelphia who happens to have designed and organized a public art project that flew Isaiah Zagar and his wife from Philly to work with high school students and artists to beautify a public beach restroom while commemorating the 2008 International Year of the Reef initiative.

WOW !

To be able to witness a group of people come together to love a place, to bring beauty to something that had been long forgotten and neglected, was such a humbling, incredible experience. I'm very thankful to have fallen into the circumstance.

This is the bathroom as it looked January 5th, just before we started:

And five days later:

Part of the fun of the project was talking to people as they passed by: answering their questions and inviting them to join. A few times someone would walk up to me and say, "Hi. Are you the artist?"
Hmmm... interesting question. "Well, I'm an artist."

"...But Isaiah, he is the artist. This is his medium, his style"

"Embedded in many of his works are the words "Art is the Center of the Real World". His murals reflect an appreciation for the imaginative human and sensual element in the potentially bleak urban environment. Beginning his public works in blighted, decrepit neighborhoods, these murals were part of the inspiration that transformed the environment."
-wikipedia

On day three, since we were having such a hard time removing the outside layer of latex paint on one of the walls, we decided to paint a mural. We got a copy of the International Year of the Reef 2008 logo, and two of the students sketched it out and traced it with paint. It's an image of coral with Maui county superimposed over it (Maui county is actually four islands: Maui, Lanai, Molokai and Kaho'olawe)

Unfortunately, one of the students that started it couldn't make it to the last two days of the project because of school. It didn't look like anyone wanted to stop working on the mosaics to paint, and I didn't want to see the mural turn out to be a weak link in the project since the five mosaics were looking so outstanding and colorful.


So I took ownership. I spent two days painting that wall, sweating and baking in the hot sun, loving it, and by the time I was done, it looked pretty good !