Gallery & Gift Shop
ARTIST PROFILES

 
Elmer Adams, master woodturner, is fascinated with making art pieces using turned wood as a medium. While traveling extensively in the Caribbean and South Pacific, he became interested in the many wood art forms made by local craftsmen. Since he was cruising by sailing vessel with his wife Judy, he found ample time to study different woods, ways to work each species, and the varied forms he saw. He was particularly inspired by a koa bowl he saw in the Volcano Art Center Gallery. In the past nine years, Elmer has studied with ten woodturning masters, gaining insight in the finer points of form and design, as well as technique. He has built his own large lathe and has become one of the most respected Big Island woodturners. In the last four years, Elmer has received some 14 awards and recognitions for his creative designs and the craftsmanship of his work. In 2001, he received a first place award in the statewide Hawai'i woodworkers' show, and received both first and second place awards in the Hawai'i Island Woodworkers' Show. Elmer has experimented with a number of wood finishes and has developed what he believes is a very durable and beautiful wood finish that he tops with a long lasting micro-crystalline wax that was developed for the British Museum. The wood grain, colors, and textures in each art piece are a creation of nature, making each one an original. Elmer feels that when he is in touch with the wood, the character of the wood itself influences the form of the final piece. He makes every effort to bring out the best in each, and his craftsmanship is admired by other woodworkers.

 
Clayton Amemiya was born in Wahiawa on O'ahu. He attended Punahou Academy and received a bachelor's degree in Asian studies from the University of Hawai'i-Manoa. Clayton was introduced to pottery while working at the U.S. Consulate in Okinawa in 1972, when he met Seisho Kuniyoshi, who made Japanese tableware at the time. He spent every weekend for the next year at Kuniyoshi's studio, not getting hands-on instruction, but learning through observation and viewing ceramics in museums, exhibitions, and antique shops. In 1975, Clayton spent six months assisting Kuniyoshi in building and firing the first of his anagama wood-fired kilns. He returned to Honolulu to finish a master's degree in history, going back to Okinawa to study with Kuniyoshi numerous times. In 1979, Clayton and his family moved to Hilo. In 1986, he enlisted Kuniyoshi's help in building his own anagama kiln. Clayton's anagama is essentially a 12-foot long tunnel, about 4 1/2 feet tall and 4 1/2 feet wide. Hot flames are drawn from one end of the tunnel to the other. Several factors determine the final look of each piece: the speed and intensity of the fire and how each piece is positioned in the kiln where the flying ashes vary the glaze so that no two pieces will look exactly the same. Even though it takes four days to tend the fire, the anagama allows Clayton to get much wider variations in glaze than he could with a gas kiln. He uses Big Island woods--'ohi'a, keawe, koa, and lichee--to fire his kiln.

 
Frank Andrews has been accumulating a growing following as a sculptor for twenty years, his second career after a sojourn as a college teacher. During the 1970s Frank's sculpture was featured in galleries and art exhibitions across the United States. He then decided to devote the travel time that this had entailed to creating new designs, and opened the Sculpture Gallery in Kansas City. A second gallery in Tulsa followed two years later. In 1989, after selling the galleries, Frank moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico where he maintains his studio. He now divides his time between Santa Fe and Hawai'i. Frank's welded copper wall hangings are adaptations of petroglyphs found in Hawai'i. They express the simple elegance and mystery of stone artistry while maintaining anthropological accuracy.

 
Mary Arbuthnott was born in New York City in 1955 and grew up in Connecticut and Florida. During her youth, she traveled extensively and was deeply interested in crafts, leatherwork, and ceramics in particular. She received a BFA in studio arts from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she concentrated on mixed media sculpture involving the human form. After graduation, she moved to Arizona. There, influenced by Anasazi and Hopi pottery, as well as by pre-Columbian sculpture, she began to develop the stoneware pottery and sculpture that is her current work. The figurative sculpture frequently depicts humankind's spiritual relationship to the earth. This line of endeavor, as well as a love for the tropics, prompted her move to Hawai'i in 1994. She has since returned to the mainland to travel, play music, and sing, and to work in her Arizona studio.

 
Keith Beardsley was born in Portland, Oregon but has lived in Hawai‘i since he was two. Keith's grandfather, a carpenter who made a bandsaw for him, was a key to his interest in woodworking. Keith began doing serious woodworking in 1985. Like many woodworkers, he is self-taught--with the help of numerous books and trade publications. Keith also conducts tours through the Kilauea Military Camp. He and his family live in Hilo where his shop contains a 10" tablesaw, two routers, a 14" bandsaw, a 6" jointer, a 12½" planer, belt and orbital sanders, and a 6" buffer. "I enjoy working with all varieties of wood," he says. "The sense of accomplishment and satisfaction from my work when someone sees it and wants it to become part of their home.".

Marian Berger is a first-rate naturalist artist fully deserving of her growing reputation. Born in Limerick, Ireland, the daughter of a meteorologist, Marian spent her early childhood on Wake Island and in Alaska, where she acquired her father's love of science, her mother's artistic bent, and her parents' mutual love of the outdoors. "I assumed that art was a natural part of life, a way that everyone expressed themselves," she says. During her teens, Marian focused on abstracts until she took a class at Humboldt State University in representational drawing which "opened my eyes," as she puts it. After graduating from Humboldt with a degree in wildlife management, Marian moved to the Big Island in 1976. While studying Hawai'i's wild rats and working as a veterinary assistant, she continued to paint. Marian had her first one-woman show at Volcano Art Center Gallery and has had several since. In 1987, she created a series of paintings of Hawai'i's endangered birds and plants for the Aston Kaua'i Resort. An edition of 2000 prints was published, and proceeds from the sales were given to the Hawai'i Nature Conservancy. In 1988, she painted a number of watercolors presented to U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye and U.S. Representative Daniel Akaka for their contributions in preserving Hawai'i's native wildlife. She continues to receive commissions and to paint independently with consummate skill.

Joan Blackshear was born in Hilo on the Big Island of Hawai'i. The seeds of her art were sown early while playing hide and seek among Banyan roots, torch ginger, and wild orchids. In her mid-teens, she went to live in Los Angeles and graduated from Woodbury University with a degree in fashion design. Joan worked the next 15 years for several upscale fashion houses in Los Angeles, including her own, Joan Blackshear Designs, Inc., and Jean Louis Couture of Beverly Hills. She has been featured in Women's Wear Daily and California Apparel News. Joan returned to Hawai'i in 1988, settling near Kailua-Kona, where she started handpainting silks for both her clothing and home decor collections. Joan observes, "Silk is extremely fluid and takes the colors beautifully. Dyes are individually mixed to create a wide range from delicate pastels to deep vegetable. Through my work, I cherish and reflect the infinite beauty and life of this land and its people."

Keith Bramer is, first and foremost, a glass artist. His specialties include original stained and leaded glass window work, glass carvings, glass fabrication, and sculptures using other mediums. His preoccupation with Hawaiian petroglyphs is evident in the etched functional glassware that can always be found in our Gallery. "From time to time, other passions coax and pull me into working on pieces outside my 'safe' medium," says Keith, as evidenced by his 2000 Volcano Art Center Gallery exhibit "The 'Ukulele as an Icon" of embellished 'ukulele and carved glass.

Gene Buscher was trained as a draftsman, but decided to take up woodworking when he left his native California to live on the Big Island of Hawai'i. He says, "I had a carver friend who let me be his apprentice, and he showed me how to do the kind of carving I use to make my bowls." Gene follows the natural form of whatever piece of wood he uses. "I don't like trying to invent a shape. For me, the challenge is to let the natural material tell me what it wants to do. On some of my bowls, I leave the edges raw, just as they came from the log." None of the wood for Gene's bowls is cut from living trees. "I harvest all my material by hand from stumps or downed branches. It's really more like salvage work." Gene uses a spindle carver which consists of a three-tool metal shaft with a high-speed blade on one end. The inside surfaces are smoothed with a hand-held grinder and then sanded and oiled with mineral oil.

 
Donna Carnegie was born in Queens, New York and got a degree in history. She later studied metal arts at the Oregon School of Arts and Crafts which led from making custom jewelry to a business rebuilding and restoring Pontiac GTOs. She still loves working with metal and currently works on welding steel sculpture when she isn't painting. She divides her time between her homes in Hilo and Portland, Oregon. Donna began by painting horses in 1996, another passion of hers. She started doing landscapes to provide backgrounds for the horses and found that she liked painting landscapes as much as she liked painting horses. While she is not strictly a plein air painter, she finds outdoor work essential to capturing the nuances of color and light that a camera just can't reproduce. Sometimes she does a quick study in oil on location, and when time is limited she does a small pencil sketch with detailed notes and diagrams indicating colors and values, always keeping in mind what struck her about the scene. She supplements the notes with photographs and works out her final composition in the studio. Donna first visited the Big Island in 1978, and that experience began a lifelong fascination with the volcano region. She finds "a unique rhythmic beauty" in the lava fields that "are a constant reminder that the earth is a living entity." She says, "I love painting because of the constant challenge it offers: To translate something that was originally experienced with all five senses to a purely visual context and still make it feel real. I hope that people will have a sense of recognition, maybe of a place or an emotion, when they see my work. That through my eyes, they can share my vision."

Bruce Clark graduated from Punahou on O'ahu, earned a degree in art from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, and returned to the University of Hawai'i to pursue his interest in glassblowing. Between 1974 and 1980, Bruce studied with Claude Horan, Ivan Treskow, and Steve Correia, whom he later joined as part of Correia Art Glass both in Hawai'i and in Santa Monica, California. In addition to working on the production blowing team for a major glass studio, he built and maintained furnaces, and prepared the molten glass ("charging") -- all of which prepared him well to operate Hawaiian Blown Glass, which he founded with Diane Kelly in 1983. "Fire and heat, and how materials respond to extreme temperatures, have always intrigued me. Glassblowing is a pyromaniac's dream. Under heat, glass is transformed into a moving, almost alive material. Its infinite possibilities are my inspiration," says Bruce.

Jelena Clay became involved in lei making and fiber arts when she moved to Hawai'i in 1985. She has studied with Jon-Jon Hookano, Pam Barton, and Will Maglothin, producing an ever-increasing variety of contemporary and traditional work in every natural fiber she could find. Her interest in all Hawaiian art forms naturally led her to gourds. Captivated by their colors, shapes, and solidity, Jelena says the gourds themselves tell her what to do. The individual "personalities" of each one, with their bulges and irregularities, suggest the ornamentation she uses. She draws upon her extensive library of Hawaiian images to burn etch the gourds, and then adds feathers, seed lei, natural fibers, dye, and stain colors.

Cindy Conklin, who lives on O'ahu, is a frequent participant in juried art shows in Hawai'i, and her work is in collections locally and worldwide. She says, "Moving to Hawai'i in 1992 liberated my art and shocked me into a new plane of awareness of the outrageous beauty, interconnectedness, and magic of the natural world. The luxury of creating art on a daily basis is new to me. I know that the productivity, creativity, and happiness I feel now shows in my work. New ideas beckon to me as I move around these amazing islands. Hawai'i is such a visually rich environment with brilliant colors year-round--ideal for my preferred subjects: wildlife, landscapes, flowers, reef life, cultural artifacts, and dreams. I like to flit from image to image and from medium to medium in a non-linear way. My favorite materials involve scratchboard, paper sculpture, watercolor, and mixed media. Works in various stages of completion compete for my attention and time in a ceaseless flow of creative energy."

Brigitte Sekirka Cooper holds a Masters of Fine Arts from Muthesius Werkschule in Kiel, Germany, where she majored in textile arts. Brigitte was living in Ireland when a young American made her an offer she couldn't refuse. She married him, and they moved to the U.S., eventually settling in Alaska. While living there, she served as adjunct faculty for the University of Alaska, Matanuska Campus, and served on the Visual Arts Panel for the Alaska State Council on the Arts. She received a fellowship grant from the Alaska State Council on the Arts, a project grant from the Visual Arts Center of Alaska, purchase awards from the Alaska State Art Bank and the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, and five Art in Public Places commissions. Brigitte completed other commissions for the Performing Arts Center in Palmer, Alaska; Community Hall in Cannon Beach, Oregon; the Sheraton in Poipu, Hawai'i; Sun Hill Country Club in Tokyo, Japan; and the British Petroleum West Coast Headquarters, Alaska.

 
Douglas Davenport became an apprentice in production pottery at the age of fifteen and feels fortunate to have learned all aspects of production—from making clay and glazes to building and firing kilns. He has been throwing production stoneware for many years and also finds hand-built work to be liberating and stimulating. Doug has his studio on O‘ahu where he is also an emergency room physician. He is married to the well-known poet Cathy Song. They and their children often visit their vacation home in Volcano. "I enjoy clay because it is a very versatile material. I also like the added dimension of the firing process, be it pit-fired, raku or high fire, because it allows for the final transformation of a piece in a way that is not always in my control–which keeps me surprised," he says.

Bill Downs, a native of Long Island, New York, has lived in Hawai'i since 1977. His passion for ceramics began quite by chance in the early 1980s after taking an elective course taught by Gordon Lee at Hawai'i Community College. Since that time, he says, "ceramics has been my creative focus." He got interested in wood firing in the 1990s. Bill's work has appeared in the juried Hawai'i Craftsmen statewide show for over ten years. Bill and his wife live in Mountain View on the Big Island. Bill's work is wood fired in a catenary cross-draft kiln he constructed himself in 1999. Most pieces go into the kiln unglazed. As the wood burns, particles of ash fall on the pieces. Ash buildup is greatest on the side which faces the flame. The other side often shows the flashing effects of the caustic atmosphere. Ash begins to melt at 2200°. At the hottest temperatures reached (2250°-2350°), the atmosphere inside the kiln becomes fluid, creating eddies and turbulence that become the signature of fire left on each unique piece. After over a cord of wood is split and dried, loading the kiln takes a full day. The kiln is preheated overnight. The wood is then added in a paced manner for 12 to 14 hours, with the actual firing taking about 24 hours. Then the kiln must cool for three days. Bill compares his anticipation of opening the kiln to that of a child at Christmas.

 
Kelly Dunn was born into an artistic family: His father was an artist, carpenter, and fighter pilot; his mother a musician, artist, and floral designer. His brother is also an artist, and both his sisters are crafts people. With creative influences around him, Kelly built tree houses as a child, had his first poem published at age 16, and won his first award for sculpture at age 18. In the early 1970s, Kelly owned and operated a craft gallery in Colorado. Later in the decade, he moved to Waimea on the Big Island where he studied woodturning with the late Larry Trombly and began building furniture. In the mid-1980s, he worked as foreman for the Palo Alto designer Bob Waterman, building one-of-a-kind furniture and design prototypes. He used that opportunity to study with some of the best woodturners in the field. Kelly moved back to the Big Island in the late 1980s and now lives with his wife and daughter in a house he designed and built himself. Kelly has won Juror's Choice Awards in the numerous Big Island Woodworker's Guild shows. His work is in the collections of Tom Hanks, Robert Redford, Mick Jagger, Bill Walton, Shelley Fabares, and Laura and Tom Van Horn. Kelly uses a custom-built lathe which can accept pieces up to 36". He begins with a raw log and a chainsaw. While the piece spins on the lathe, he assesses the grain pattern and the wood, deciding what to expose and what to remove to make it an aesthetically pleasing piece. The oiling process for Norfolk Island pine bowls takes two to three weeks, and Norfolk pine hollow vessels take nearly twice that to totally saturate the cellular structure with oils and resins. "I have an intense curiosity as to the workings of the universe, and the mechanical and spiritual wherewithal that makes it work. I always hope to grow in my art as the evolution of my talent allows me."

     
Marian Fieldson has been doing glass lampwork since 1981, studying at the famed Pilchick School with Ginny Ruffner and Bandhu Dunham. She did lampworking for gift stores in California, developing a line of signature figures. In Hawai‘i, she owned and operated retail kiosks specializing in Hawai‘i glass on O‘ahu and Maui, and in Hilo on the Big Island. She has taken workshops with Michael Mortara and goblet blowing with Brian Kerkliviet. Marian's work appeared in a 2002 issue of Glass Art magazine. She currently lives in Kurtistown where she is able to use her whole house as a studio now that her three children are grown. "I relish the excitement of planning and then discovering what happens in each individual piece as it is created," says Marian.

Elena Garcia had been well-known as a watercolorist both on the mainland and in Hawai'i when two mishaps brought about a new painting style for her. First, she had been trying to open and old tube of oil color when the tube burst. While cleaning up the mess, she became intrigued with its sculptural quality and made a series of palette knife paintings whose reception pleasantly surprised her at her next show. Then, as a result of a hit-and-run accident, Elena temporarily lost the fine motor control required for watercolor painting, and she stayed sane by doing knife paintings. Fortunately, she has now regained mastery of both brush and knife and has put it to full use in her vibrant paintings. Elena’s work aims for maximum impact rather than for portraiture, in order to evoke the sounds, smells, and motions -- as well as the power -- of the elemental forces of nature.

Ron Garten, a retired U.S. Marine Colonel, and his wife Sylvia live on the Big Island's Hamakua Coast. Their house, nicknamed "Cloud Nine," is home to Ron's woodworking shop. Settling permanently on the Islands in 1984, he soon discovered the beauty and magic of koa. No other wood, in his opinion, can compare. "The beauty of koa is that it has its own character, and an opalescence that gives the effect of looking into the wood instead of just at it." Needing to work with his hands, Ron made his first piece of furniture, a chest for blankets, and immediately got hooked on working with koa. At first just a hobby, his woodworking evolved into art, with his pieces first being sold at local galleries and later to clients in the continental U.S. His repertoire spans from the small (boxes) to the large (tables). Instead of using plans, he works from templates and by feel, listening to what the wood wants to tell him.

Almalene Ku'uipo Gray-Parker grew up in a large family in Makaha on O'ahu, with Hawaiian weaving in her bloodline from her grandmother. However, it wasn't until she was in her 20s that she began to work wood with fiber. "I see wood as fiber," she says. "I like to make them dance together." Alma and her husband moved around for many years. She was apprenticed to woodworker Garcia Esteban Barrio Bereto in the Philippines; attended Los Angeles Art Consortium with her father, Wailehua Gray, and Greg Husebye; and was apprenticed to fiber artist Emiko Elliot in Okinawa. Alma's work has been exhibited throughout Hawai'i and in museums in San Diego and San Francisco. The prestigious Peabody Essex Museum in Boston has her Kawa Kawa on permanent display in its Oceanic Gallery. If you ask Alma how she developed her distinctive method of sculpting, she'll say, "It just happened" or "Instinctively." Anyone seeing the work can readily understand that it takes a long time to complete a piece. Nonetheless she says, "The weave consumes me."

Jim Griggs has had a lifelong interest in photography. He first used his mother's camera at age 7 and got his first personal camera, a Brownie Hawkeye with flash attachment, at age 9. Jim studied with Ansel Adams and other well-known photographers at Yosemite workshops, and served as teaching assistant at several Yosemite workshops while otherwise employed as an aerospace engineer in California. Photography brought Jim to Hawai'i in late 1974. He arrived just in time to help with the original opening of Volcano Art Center by cleaning, sweeping, hammering, and making display lighting from coffee cans. Jim had his first formal photographic exhibits in Hawai'i in 1975. From 1979 to 1992, he served as staff photographer at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. As such, he was privileged to be a daily witness of all of Kilauea's major activities. Most notably, Jim was able to document the years of Pu'u 'O'o's most spectacular fountains. He uses 35mm, 6x7, and 4x5 formats, and established his digital 'darkroom' in 2003. Jim is represented in the collection of the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts.

Ron Hanatani established RYH Pottery in 1991 after he returned from a 3 year stay in Japan. Prior to living in Japan, he worked as a geologist with the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory located in the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. He exchanged working with earth and fire as a geologist with working with clay and fire working as a potter. The business started in the beginning as a one-man operation and continues to be a one-man operation to this day. All of the work involved in making pottery for RYH Pottery is done by the owner. This involves wedging the clay, forming the piece on the wheel or slab roller, drying and bisque firing, decorating, and glaze firing. His pottery is mainly functional ware--including bowls, plates, mugs, teacups, vases, and planters--made primarily for the people of the Big Island.

Shirley Hasenyager, originally from New Mexico, lives on O'ahu. Over the past 25 years, she has received awards for watercolors, etchings, and serigraphs and has been accepted in several juried exhibitions. Her work is in many private and corporate collections and has appeared in numerous one-person shows and group exhibits, locally, nationally, and internationally. "Over the years, I have been to many remote places on all of our islands, either on foot or by 'four-wheel.' My work is based on personal experiences of, and feelings about, the landscape of Hawai'i. Recently, most of my work has been about the Volcano area of the Big Island, where the destructive and regenerative forces of nature are ever apparent and awesomely inspiring."

Julie Houck, as a child in art class, was told she wasn't 'good' at art since she always painted things the 'wrong' color. After sixteen years as a successful commercial photographer, Julie decided to return to a career as an artist. "Life is not about materialism or making money, it's about the process of opening up to yourself to trust your inner wisdom," she says. After moving to Hawai'i in 1995 and completing a series based on a visit to an ancient Hawaiian village, Julie began to move away from the method she had learned in her classical training, one based on painted blocks of color and brushed line work. She began to experiment with oil pastels, fully exploiting the medium’s possibilities by selectively using a number of additive and subtractive techniques and tools to achieve fine detail not commonly associated with pastels. As time went on, Julie’s motifs became less universal and more Hawaiian, just as her women began to look more Polynesian. Julie's current work is dedicated to the Hawaiian spirit. Taking her themes from traditional sources, Julie's work in oil pastels reflects the strength and beauty of the Hawaiian culture.

    
Jack Jeffrey began serious nature photography in 1974 while working as a wildlife biologist throughout Hawai'i State. He discovered that there were few good photographs of Hawaiian native birds in the wild and, for some species, there were none at all. He set about correcting the situation and now says, "Little did I know how difficult the task would be, and how all-consuming photography would become." As a scientist, Jack has access to remote places not open to the general public where he can capture endangered birds and plants in their natural environments. Knowing the behaviors of his subjects helps him find often-reclusive species, many of which are now sadly declining. As anyone who has tried to photograph their family pet already knows, getting a good animal photograph is an exercise in patience, even inside a house or yard. For a nature photographer like Jack, the difficulties are compounded in the wild by the scarcity of the birds, the rugged terrain of their native habitats, constantly changing lighting conditions, staying an un-frightening distance from the birds, and waiting, constantly on the alert, for hours or even days, to take a few fleeting photos. Jack's many years of photography have allowed him to go far beyond the technical requirements of his original goal of documenting Hawai'i's endangered species. His photographs have a significant beauty as images that give genuine aesthetic pleasure. His compositions are as balanced as a studio portrait, and his subjects all have a jewel-like clarity. Jack is recipient of the prestigious National Sierra Club Ansel Adams' Award for Conservation Photography, Hawai'i Audubon Society's Conservationist of the year Award, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Endangered Species Recovery Champion Award, and The Nature Conservancy of Hawai'i 'Aina Award.

Arthur Johnsen, born in Honolulu, attended Kawananakoa Intermediate and Punahou High Schools prior to earning a BA in graphic design at the University of California at Berkeley. He lived on the Big Island from '74 to '77, while he studied dance with Earnest Morgan, apprenticed at the Volcano Art Center (under artist-in-residence Paul Degen), and worked in fire patrol for Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. Arthur did some graduate work at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa under Ken Bushnell and Helen Gilbert. He joined Pacific Handcrafters Guild and displayed hand-silkscreened cards of native Hawaiian plants as 'Taro Cards' and also hand-silkscreened pareos. In the '80s, Arthur did airbrushed 'wearable art' and had his work purchased by people like Lionel Ritchie and Michael Jackson, so he moved to Los Angeles to pursue the possibilities in the garment industry. He moved back to the Big Island and lived and worked as artist-in-residence at Kalani Honua, and eventually built a house in Puna Palisades where he lives today. He had a commission doing the pillows and bedspreads for the Kona Village Resort through Honolulu designer Mary Philpotts. He has painted murals at the Plantation House and SeaWatch restaurants on Maui, and several large lobby paintings for the Orchid at Maunalani. Most recently he painted a gigantic mural series on the entry walls of the Aston Waikiki Beach Tower and lobby paintings for the Aston Kaanapali Shores. What Arthur really enjoys is plein air (outdoor) painting, mostly in the Puna District. He says, "Not only does this make the job of painting much more fun, it allows me to steep myself in the particular beauties of a site and capture nuances of lighting that just can't be discovered when working from a photograph. If you visit the Puna coast on a sunny day, you may well see me with my easel."

Kina Kam takes great care in creating her one-of-a-kind contemporary Hawaiian gourd sculpture, or ipu pawehe (decorated gourd). She uses a mixture of traditional and modern preparation techniques to preserve her gourds, which can take up to eight months to grow. Gourds are dyed, then carefully hand carved and decorated. Because of their lack of clay for pottery, Hawaiians used gourd extensively as both food and water containers, as well as hula instruments. Gourds were brought with the early Hawaiians from their Polynesian homelands.

 
Herb Kawainui Kane is an artist-historian and author with special interest in Hawai'i and the South Pacific. He resides in rural South Kona on the island of Hawai'i. Career experience has included advertising art, publishing art, architectural design, painting, writing, and sculpture. Clients include private collectors, the Hawai'i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, the National Park Service, National Geographic, and major publishers of books and periodicals. His art has appeared on postage stamps for the U.S. Postal Service, the Republic of the Marshall islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and French Polynesia. As a design consultant, he has worked on resorts in Hawai'i and the South Pacific and a cultural center in Fiji. In 1984 he was elected a "Living Treasure of Hawai'i." In the 1987 "Year of the Hawaiian" celebration, he was one of 16 persons chosen as Po'okela (Champion).

Diane Kelly studied ceramics at Lewis and Clark College after graduating from Mid-Pacific Institute in Honolulu. Upon graduating from Lewis and Clark, she served a two-year internship at the School of Arts and Crafts in Portland, Oregon, then returned to the University of Hawai'i to study glass blowing. After a year-long apprenticeship at Correia Art Glass, she studied at University of California, Los Angeles, with renowned glass artist Richard Marquis and Italian master glassblower Gianni Toso. With Bruce Clark, she founded Hawaiian Blown Glass in 1983. Diane is also a skilled woodworker, patternmaker, welder, and metal worker. "I love glass because it challenges me and pushes me beyond my known limits. A finished piece requires my absolute attention. It's responsive, yet unforgiving. There is no room for error. The difference between a masterpiece and a useless piece of glass is only a half-second of inattention," she says.

Matt Kleinfelder had his first experience with glass in 1999. "Glass was the most incredibly difficult and yet thrilling form of art that I had ever stumbled upon in my young life. I was eighteen years old, fresh out of high school; and like most people my age, I really had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I had toyed around with ceramics, guitar, and little pen and ink drawings, and had come to the decision that I wanted to be an artist. I learned that James Moody, an old artist friend of my mom's, had been blowing glass for quite some time and needed an apprentice. Regardless of our age difference, Moody and I soon became close friends and he took me on as a glass apprentice. So, for a year and a half, I blew glass nonstop, six days a week. I recently moved to Hilo, Hawai'i, where I am beginning to blow glass again. I don't know what to expect, or if my style is going to change. All I know is that I am very much in love with glass; it is a very sexy material to work with. Glass is 2300 degrees, moves like honey, transforms from liquid to rock in minutes, and can be elusive to the point that it makes you want to jump up and down screaming, 'you did it yesterday, why won't you do it today!?' But you just have to understand that glass will be glass, and if you respect her, she will give you the most beautiful...vases."

 
G. Brad Lewis has been hooked on photography since he was 7 or 8 and found a Brownie camera under the Christmas tree. "Bailing" from the University of Utah just before graduation, he got a job in a jade mine in the Brooks Range in Alaska and did a lot of photography because "the beauty was amazing." Then he became an archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, documenting historical and burial sites, in part by taking photos, many by hanging out of a two-seater plane. "I was 24 or 25 and having a ball," Brad says. Then I came to Hawai'i for a two-week vacation–and never left." Here in Hawai'i, Brad was struggling to make a living as a finish carpenter, but he had amassed a portfolio and began sending photos to magazines. He just happened to have a number of shots of a lava flow near Kalapana when the flow went right into it in 1990. As a result, his second published photograph was a double-page spread in Life Magazine. Many, many more have followed, including covers of Natural History, Geo, Photographer's Forum, and Life. In June 2003, his work was featured in National Geographic and Ranger Rick, a National Wildlife Federation publication for children. Brad lives in Volcano with his wife Annabelle and daughter Heather. He has literally lived in the lava fields, favoring dawn and dusk as the best times to capture the colors of Kilauea. His effects are not double-exposures and are achieved without the aid of special filters or other artificial manipulation.

 
Caren Loebel-Fried is a second-generation carver who learned the art of block printing from her mother. Growing up on the New Jersey shore, she spent summers exploring the beach while her mother worked on woodcuts and taught by example. Her love of nature, art, legends, and dreams came together for her when she first visited the Big Island of Hawai'i and began to study the ancient Hawaiian culture. A collection of Caren's prints and stories entitled "Legends of the Guardian Spirits" was exhibited at the Volcano Art Center Gallery in 2000, and from this exhibit grew the book Hawaiian Legends of the Guardian Spirits (University of Hawai'i Press, 2002), which received the Hawai'i Book Publishers Association's award for Excellence in Illustration and Hawaiian Culture. Her other books include Hawaiian Legends of Dreams (UH Press, 2005) and the forthcoming Lono and the Magical Land Beneath the Sea (Bishop Museum Press, 2006). Her art also appears in Tree of Souls by Howard Schwartz and Pua Polu, the Pretty Blue Hawaiian Flower by Nona Beamer. "I have always loved legends and my block prints continue to be inspired by these old stories. Legends truly came to life for me in Hawai'i, where nature is so powerful and ever-present, and the experience transformed my life and art. My hope is that these legends open people up to their own connection to nature, as Hawai'i and her legends have done for me." Her work is exhibited in Hawai'i and throughout the mainland where she also teaches block printing to children and adults. Caren spends her time with her husband and son in Volcano and in New Jersey.

 
Kathy Long has called the Big Island "home" once again since 1982. Daughter of the well-known artist Mary Kostki, she lived in Hilo until she was eight, when her family moved to the U.S. Mainland and later to Europe. There she graduated from one of the oldest schools in Scandinavia, and made her debut at the highly respected Waino Aaltonen Museum in Finland. That exhibit was the first of thirteen one-woman shows in Europe, followed by many more, in Europe, the U.S. mainland, and Hawai'i, including two shows at the Volcano Art Center Gallery. In 1979, Kathy and her art historian husband Bertil moved to Houston, Texas to open a highly successful fine arts gallery. Nonetheless, they tired of urban life and moved to Waimea in 1982, where Bertil was curator of Richard Smart's fabulous art collection at Parker Ranch until 2000. Nearly everyone living in Hawai'i has seen at least one of Kathy's masterfully executed drawings reproduced in countless publications as well as on the 2001 and 2002 Merrie Monarch Festival posters. She works from images she has photographed and then painstakingly and patiently imbues them with her love and respect for her subjects to create sensitive and exquisitely beautiful drawings. "I am not trying to depict the past in my work, but rather to record the present for the future generations. That is not to say that the past is not the foundation for the Hawaiian culture today. I like to use the word kumupa'a, meaning firm foundation in ancient times. A culture that has a firm foundation in its past can stand tall and stable in the future."

 
Judy Love, the daughter of teachers, was quite sure she did not want to teach. She took her first art class in college, decided that she wanted to be an artist, and won a scholarship to the Kansas City Art Institute--and found that a BFA in painting didn't buy groceries. But a fellowship for an MFA did--and prepared her for teaching art. Which is what she did at Kansas State University for twenty-five years, always stealing time to do her own painting and teach herself spinning and weaving. She started the fiber program at Kansas State and went so far as to raise special sheep for wool, in addition to showing her work in no less than fifty-eight shows, including nine one-person exhibits. Judy and her husband David Weyerts moved to Hawai'i in 1995, just about the time of her first exhibit at Volcano Art Center Gallery. With the exception of living in Waipio Valley for six months, they have since done work-rent exchanges, living in a succession of coffee shacks in South Kona. Some things have remained consistent: Judy's love of her adopted home, and the surpassing beauty and serenity of each one of her paintings of it.

Margaret Lynch is originally from Seattle, Washington. She journeyed to Alaska in 1973 to become a fisherman. On the off seasons she would vacation on the Hawaiian Islands, residing on Maui for several months then fishing the rest of the year in Alaska. In 1989, she made the decision to make Hawai'i her home, and moved to O'ahu. One day she visited the Fort Shafter Craft Center, and they happened to be holding a raku workshop. She bought a bag of clay and thus began her new journey as an artist. Margaret worked out of the Craft Center for 4 years, starting out as a volunteer and later teaching. She was a group leader for the Raku Ho'olaule'a for 2 consecutive years, and became a member of Hawai'i Craftsmen. She attended ceramics classes at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa and Leeward Community College, studying under Russell Wee. In 2001, Margaret moved to the Big Island. Her work is derived from her many years of being on and near the sea. Since settling on the Big Island her work has expanded to sculpting endangered species, specifically animals, and capturing Hawaiian culture. Margaret is currently venturing into sculpting of custom tiles. She is working on hand built forms, and her latest project is her solo pit fire. Margaret chaired the jury of the Hawai'i Craftsmen Statewide Exhibition from 2001 to 2004. Her work has been exhibited on the Big Island and O'ahu in various juried shows. In 2003, Margaret presented her work in the "Spirit of Clay" exhibit at the Volcano Art Center Gallery. "My form is to be the formless form: that which breaks through form into spirit," she says.

 
Rochelle Mason is an internationally-collected endangered species artist and writes the nationally-published column "Focus on Nature™." Studying extensively and making art from an early age, Rochelle began her professional art career in 1980 painting wildlife and companion animals. In 1991, she began her career as an endangered species artist. Rochelle has had two solo art exhibitions featured in natural history museums with a third underway. Her artwork is in collections around the world. Rochelle lives in Volcano, on the Big Island of Hawaii near Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and enjoys hiking, experiencing the vitality and "newness" of the island, and learning about Hawaiian culture. Swimming with sea turtles in the beautiful, warm waters is her favorite pastime.

Huey Matthews, forced into early retirement by a disabling back problem, has turned his love of woodworking from custom home construction to collectibles. Most days will find him spending time in his studio applying his craft and designing new pieces. Hawai'i has been home to Huey and his wife, Jackie, since their arrival on the Big Island in 1969. All Huey's collectibles are personally handcrafted by him, using only Hawaiian woods from trees growing on the Big Island.

Frank McClure, moved with his family to Kailua, O'ahu in 1968 when he was thirteen. Since they lived only two blocks from the beach, his life revolved around surfing, diving, and fishing. After finishing school, he moved to Kaua'i in 1975 to find less crowded waves. Unable to afford property there, he moved to the Big Island in 1989 to build his home. Like many others, his woodworking grew out of a carpentry background. It started slowly, mostly to fill in between building houses. He considers himself lucky to have found several good sources of wood early in his career which provided the inspiration for what he now does. Frank is also a professional set builder and prop maker for the film industry, but because of the sporadic nature of film work on the Big Island, he took "the plunge" and gave up building houses altogether in 1998. For the most part, he hasn't looked back, although he still works in film whenever possible. He lives on the Hamakua coast with his wife, three cats, and two horses, and loves the Big Island.

 
Victoria McCormick was allowed to use the family's Brownie camera to photograph the many animals on the farm where she lived as a girl. By following her favorite animals to take their pictures she learned to work with animals and the joy of capturing their behaviors and expressions on film. As an adult, living 3 1/2 months on remote wildlife refuges in Hawai'i's Northwestern Islands photographing for a book to honor the endangered Hawaiian Monk Seals, Victoria was able to capture some very remarkable images from one of the world's most incredible wildlife arenas. Working in conjunction with National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on French Frigate Shoals and Laysan Island, she spent many long days observing the lives of the inhabitants of the small islands: endangered Monk Seals basking on the beaches with their pups, Green Sea Turtles returning to lay their eggs, and tens of thousands of seabirds raising their young. Touching these critters' lives and learning about each species' struggle for survival was an adventure beyond all of Victoria's photographic travels across the United States. Her photographs are internationally published in works by the National Geographic Society, World Wildlife Fund, The New York Times, Outdoor Life, Time Magazine, and numerous others.

 
Boone Morrison was named a Master Artist of Hawai'i by the Honolulu Academy of Art in 1979 in recognition of his work in photography. A graduate of Stanford University, where he received degrees in architecture and history, he continued his studies as an apprentice to Ansel Adams, one of America’s greatest photographers. He received a National Endowment for the Arts Photographer’s Fellowship in 1972 to document the rural village of Miloli'i on the Island of Hawai'i. In 1974, Boone lead the group who founded the Volcano Art Center, establishing it as a primary gallery featuring the work of Hawai'i's finest artists. He remained at the art center as Executive Director until 1983, when he resigned to devote more time to photography and to establish his architecture practice. His work is featured in numerous private and public collections across the United States and beyond, including the State of Hawai'i, the Honolulu Academy of Art, the University of Hawai'i Library, the Museum of Modern Art, the Getty Museum, and the University of Arizona Art Museum. Over the years, Boone's work has included images of hula, documentary work of rural Hawai'i, traditional and abstract landscapes, and ongoing work with the volcanoes of Hawai'i. Currently he is continuing his work in architecture, undertaking writing projects, and bringing forth his photographs once again.

Michael & Misato Mortara met in the glass studio at University of Hawai'i-Manoa. Michael was first introduced to glass blowing in high school and has been working with that medium for over 24 years. In 1980, he joined the glass blowing department at Punahou School as a technical assistant while completing a degree in Architecture from the UH-Manoa. Several years ago, he began a shift away from his architectural and construction endeavors to focus more time on his work in glass. Similarly, Misato was taking an elective to finish her business degree when she took her first course in glass, and was also hooked. In 1999, Michael and Misato moved to Volcano, and hand built their 2400° Fahrenheit Studio in the rain forest on the upper slopes of Kilauea volcano. As full time glass artists, they divide their time between the production of limited edition vessel series and one-of-a-kind sculptural pieces. Their glass is in private collections throughout the U.S. and Europe, and has been included in the permanent collection of Hawai'i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts and The Contemporary Museum of Art, Honolulu. "There is something both dramatic and dynamic about the manipulation of a molten mass of glass, such that the process has almost as much appeal for me as does the product. Hot glass is a medium in constant motion, where balance, timing and rhythm are the essential tools in the process. Once you start, you can't stop until it's done, and after more than twenty years in glass, I've conceded that it is the glass that is really in control, as much as I would like to think other wise," says Michael.

Laka Morton grew up in Kapa'a, Kaua'i. Family weekends and vacations were spent in Ha'ena where Laka developed his love of seashells, becoming the youngest member of the Hawai'i Malacological Society at around age 9. Laka absorbed the art of life from the personalities surrounding him, rather than from formal art study. After finishing high school, he spent 6 months studying French at the University of Strasbourg. Afterward, he immersed himself in European culture before returning to Hawai'i via Tahiti. By then he had a deep interest in Pacific anthropology which took him to Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, New Caledonia, as well as French Polynesia. Laka had always made drawings, particularly of the Hawaiian and Polynesian faces that struck him. It was during his last semester in oceanography and anthropology at UH-Manoa that he decided to become an artist. He moved back to Kaua'i and opened the burgeoning Gallery Hanalei which, unfortunately, was robbed. Done with the gallery business, Laka's art continued to blossom. Dozens of exhibits and awards followed. For 10 years, he was in-house artist and museum director for the Native Hawaiian Trading and Cultural Center. The Kaua'i Museum commissioned a series of paintings of ancient Kaua'i rulers. In 2003, two of his paintings were finalists in Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park's competition for a vision of Pele.

 
Phan Nguyen, born in North Vietnam, was a volunteer interpreter for a U.S. Air Force chaplain who helped her come to the U.S. to study. She arrived in Arizona in 1969 and worked her way through art degrees from Phoenix College and Arizona State University. In 1983, she moved to Hawai'i where she embraced its healing beauty and quickly became well known for tropical landscapes and flowers in the medium she has perfected--direct-dye silk batik. An emotional return to Vietnam in 1992 brought forth a series of haunting mixed media sculpture unlike anything she'd done before. Since her highly praised "Women's Beauty/Women's Fate" exhibition in 1997, Phan has traveled extensively in Europe, Japan, the Philippines, and the U.S. mainland in search of spiritual and creative inspiration. She found just the impetus she was looking for when she moved to the crest of Kilauea volcanoo. For Phan, the majestic mountain forests and exceptional volcanic terrain make a "Landscape for the Soul."

     
Harinani Orme, born in Honolulu, is truly following her ancestral path. She was adopted in infancy and always felt she was Hawaiian on some level. When she moved back to Hawai'i from the mainland two years ago, she felt a deep need to find her roots. Her search for her original birth certificate revealed that her intuition was indeed correct; she is part Hawaiian. Now Harinani is on a quest to learn everything she possibly can about her Hawaiian culture. That's what sent her to the Bishop Museum Library and Archives, where she unearthed the legends and stories of old Hawai'i that inspired her 2006 "Ke Ala Kupuna" (The Ancestral Path) exhibit. Harinani earned a B.F.A. in printmaking at the University of Hawai'i and an M.F.A. in printmaking and painting at Pratt Institute in New York. Her background as a printmaker is clearly evident in her paintings, with strong graphics that fittingly dramatize the provocative Hawaiian myths and legends she has chosen to portray. Harinani has furthered her studies at Isomata in Idyllwild, California, the Vermont Studio School, and Missley Studios in Brooklyn. Her work has been included in numerous juried art exhibitions encompassing a range of art media, and she has received a number of awards, honors, and commissions.

Vicki Penney-Rohner currently resides on the Big Island of Hawai'i and has explored a variety of media, including ceramics, fiber, drawing, and painting to capture the experience of the islands. She has studied art in Hawai'i, on the U.S. Mainland, and in Europe. While she is influenced by the many places she has visited in her travels, Vicki's current work focuses on nature and there is an emphasis on the endangered culture of the Hawaiian Islands: its people, flora, and fauna. Her medium of choice is currently oil and soft pastels. "With my pastels I always strive to crate a sense of mood, using light and a layering of color to not just render a picture, but express the feeling of my subject. Most notable in the majority of my works is a sense of the mood created by light and color, even in the more abstract images." Vicki volunteers her time as an artist and business-woman in her community’s schools and arts organizations and teaches classes as well. Her artwork has won numerous awards in juried art shows over the last five years. She is represented by three galleries in Hawai'i and her work appears in several private collections both in Hawai'i and the continental U.S., as well as in many public places.

Doni Reisland works with husband David building fine furnishings for individual commissions and galleries. Over the years she developed a sideline making sushi boards, chopsticks, and Ikebana stands, initially to use leftover wood. "I realized I really enjoyed making products using the natural edges I occasionally found left on the wood," says Doni. "This led me to search for a source of koa branches. With the branches I will often have a natural edge on each side of the item. It is also a way to use parts of the koa tree that would normally be left on the ground, as they are no use to other craftspeople.

Mike Riley says, "Living with an active volcano as a neighbor has provided exciting moments over the past 25 years, and is a part of life in Hawai'i that has influenced my work." Each piece of furniture completed in Mike's shop during these years was designed and built using the finest Hawaiian woods and old world joinery to create handmade furniture that is not only distinctive but able to stand up to every day use. Knowledge of local woods and years of experience building custom furniture on the Big Island have contributed to the development of his unique style of work, which reflects the many cultural and natural influences found in Hawai'i. Mike has served on the board of directors of the Big Island Woodworkers Guild and the Volcano Art Center.

Hugh Jenkins & Stephanie Ross live on the Hamakua coast. Hugh has worked in glass since 1969. He got his first introduction to glass blowing at the Foundry in Honolulu. He brought glass into the Punahou School art department in 1972 and continued to teach there until 1998. During summers and sabbatical leaves, he has also taught glass at Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. Hugh's glass has evolved through several functional and sculptural phases, usually including highly polished optical surfaces. In 1999 and 2000 he created a glass teaching program and a professional glass studio on the Big Island. He is currently working with Honoka'a High School to provide an introductory program in glass as part of the physics class. Stephanie earned her degrees first at California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, and then received her graduate degrees from the University of Hawai'i-Manoa. She has taught art to high school and elementary school students since 1975. In 1997 she opened her own studio where she creates her own works as well as teaching private students. Stephanie was introduced to glass in 1995 and has worked in collaboration with Hugh since 1996 on a highly colored series of bowls and vases. She designs the color and suggests shapes for each piece then when the color has been applied, Hugh takes over to realize the form. The most recent glass is in direct response to working on the Big Island, depicting impressions of the volcanoes, forest, ocean, and widely varying climate and environment of that island. Light, weather, and time of day are additional variants in this ongoing group.

 
Elroy Juan & Georgia Sartoris create hue wai pawehe, decorated water gourds. Elroy grows three shapes from native Hawaiian seed on his farm in Pa'auilo. The fields for each shape must be grown far enough from the others so that the gourds stay true to form. After about nine months, when the gourd is fully mature, the pawehe (decoration) is made by carefully removing the green skin of the gourd in the desired pattern. Then the gourd is either immersed in, or filled with, a dye made of plant and minerals for a period of time. When the dyed gourd is completely dry, after another nine months, the skin is removed, revealing rich colors and designs. When they began, both Georgia and Elroy used traditional Hawaiian patterns. Now Elroy is concentrating on his own original designs, presenting traditional Hawaiian culture in the modern world. Georgia and Elroy studied the ancient hue wai pawehe in collections like the Bishop Museum. With the help of their kumu (teacher) Ka'imiloa Crisman--and years of trial and error--they have succeeded in recreating a traditional Hawaiian art form.

 
Alex Slotzkin didn't really mean to emmigrate from Israel when he met his wife-to-be in California in 1974--but somehow that's what happened. Alex, his wife, and daughter moved to Hawai'i in 1984. In 1976, Alex was living in a very remote and rural part of Washington State and considering what he could make with his hands in order to earn a living when he began teaching himself to make pottery. He found he liked the work, and to his gratification, other people did too--and he's made his living at pottery ever since. He works in both high-fire and raku, making jewelry, windchimes, tiles, and his non-functional teapots. He produced forty-five of them for a show at the Volcano Art Center in 1993, and every one of them sold!

Joseph Boris Ster was born in 1940 in Yugoslavia where he was a research chemist for a major U.S. corporation until he decided to devote all of his time to art. Joseph designs jewelry and sculpture of various metals, developing his own formulas to achieve unique coloration in his work. Recently, Joseph added pottery to his artistic talents, using Raku, the method begun by Japanese potters in the sixteenth century. The Raku method requires the artist to take a piece of pottery from the kiln while it is still red-hot, thus altering the normal cooling process and giving them a unique smoke and crackle pattern to the surface. Each pot undergoes tremendous thermal shock as it is lifted molten from the kiln and swiftly placed in a container of combustibles like dry leaves and seaweed where it burns and cools. "I enjoy the feeling of discovery clay offers and the dreams of so many shapes it contains. It is a gift from the earth."

 
Linda Rowell Stevens, formerly known as a doll maker, is now recognized for her reverential paintings of Hawaiian themes. Her paintings are inspired by her love of Hawaiian myths, legends, and of the land itself. After college, Linda took a cross-country trip from the East Coast. She visited Hawai‘i and, like so many others, decided to stay, settling in the Puna District. For many years, Linda was a well-known doll maker, regularly appearing in Pacific Handcrafters and Hawai'i Craftsmen shows. She researched her subjects, designed and sewed the costumes as well as the bodies, sculpted the heads, and hand-painted each one. Among her more important dolls were meticulous representations of King Kalakaua, Princess Kaiulani, and Queen Lili'uokalani, all now in private collections. Apart from painting her dolls, Linda had done only a few watercolors before she came upon the book Painting Techniques of the Masters around 1998. She experimented with the various layers of glazes and under-paintings that the old masters used and found that she got the effects she wanted. Since then, Linda has happily painted almost every day, and plans to do so for the rest of her life. Although her paintings feature the human form, she doesn't use models or photographs. "I just draw until it looks right," she blithely says. Linda especially appreciates the fact that she needs only canvas, paints, and brushes, not the dozens of supplies required for doll-making. In 2003, her painting of Pele was honored as one of the finalists chosen from over 140 paintings entered in Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park’s competition for a painting of the volcano goddess.

Michael Stewart has lived on the islands since 1991. He relocated from San Jose, California to explore the clear blue reefs of Hawai'i as a PADI scuba instructor and was immediately captivated by his surroundings and began to document what he saw through the camera lens. Michael gravitated to Kilauea, drawn by its raw energy and intense visual displays. Michael taught himself the craft of photography through intense reading and hands-on practice, refining his technique into his signature style. His Kilauea images have been created through years of dedication spent on the flow fields and utmost patience for the right combination of color, balance, and intensity found on the special nights the volcano delivers. Michael shoots only traditional film in a larger format for superior definition and clarity. He avoids using colored filters and enjoys using natural light at dawn and dusk to embrace the incredible volcanic palette. His work can be found in galleries across Hawai'i and was shown at the Louvre Art Centre of Paris in 2001. It has also appeared in numerous magazines, including Professional Photographer, National Geographic Traveler, Travel and Leisure, National Wildlife, and others. His volcano photography was featured on two shows for the Discovery-Travel channel in 2002 documenting his work in Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.

 
Terry Taube has resided in Hawai'i since 1974 and began exhibiting his works in Hawai'i's galleries in 1985. Terry began making his own paper using the Eastern Japanese method in 1985. The originality and vitality of Terry's creations are reflected in his "self-taught" style. With paper, Terry is able to create textures as diverse as simulated butterfly wing dust, luminous and precious, with metallic pearlessence quality, to fossil-like earthy images, illusions of bronze and rock so real you have to touch them to realize they're art. Nature printing takes on a new exciting dimension when you see Terry's bas-relief and sculptural paper. Working so directly with the subject captures some of the magic inherent in nature.

 
John Threlfall was originally an engineering and mathematics major while dabbling in the arts. Then he discovered ceramics--which he first studied with Czech Vojta Svoboda from 1974-1976. Feeling in need of a change, John visited Hawai'i, and moved to the Big Island in 1977 where he lived off the land in Waipio Valley for a few years. Around 1980, John began serious study of Buddhism and Buddhist art with Tibetan lamas, and did a study tour in Japan, Thailand, India, and Nepal in 1983. In 1986, he built his home and studio in Volcano, studied ceramics and raku technique with Gordon Lee and Chiu Leong, while developing his own distinctive style. "I'm drawn to the edge between form and formless. There's a space of mystery and freedom there, where the mind can't build a fence or seize hold of any fixed idea," he says.

Dominic Tidmarsh was born in 1964 on the island of Trinidad in the Caribbean. From his early fascination with the earth and the sky, he developed an artistic style that draws from, and brings together, both art and science. A high school music scholar in England, he went on to attend the Maine Photographic Workshops in Rockport Maine, then the Corcoran School of Art in Washington DC, graduating in 1988. Now a resident of the Big Island, Dominic's work is easily recognized for its depictions of the land and the skies of Hawai'i. " As an artist, I bring together elements from a range of disciplines--art, science, and the humanities--into my work. My paintings and drawings are a way of fusing these interests into a single overall expression of the world around us, and our place within it. The recurring theme of the 'Volcano and the Night Sky' has long been a favorite subject for this endeavor. It represents a place where the physical body, the earth, reaches up into the realm of the abstract spirit, the sky. It is the point at which the one becomes the other."

   
Dietrich Varez came to Hawai'i at age 8, when his mother married his stepfather Manuel Varez. After the war-torn Germany he'd known, it was love at first sight, and his romance with Hawai'i still grows. Shunning publicity and working in the simplest possible fashion with linoleum blocks, Varez continually shapes his strong personal expression of Hawai'i. By nature a quiet and retiring man, he lives with his wife Linda (a noted painter) in a remote rain forest setting near Volcano Village on the Big Island. Isolated by several miles of bad road, he is able to maintain the tranquility he desires for his work. Only in the last few years has he been persuaded to put in a telephone. The Hawai'i of old--when spirits inhabited every tree and stone, and gods walked the earth--is Dietrich's inspiration. His work boldly traces the adventures and passions of a cast of mythical characters he has carefully researched in legend. He lovingly and faithfully depicts Hawaiians practicing the arts, skills, and values of old Hawai'i. The Dietrich Varez catalog contains a wealth of knowledge and could be called "Old Hawai'i Illustrated." For many years, Dietrich worked as a bartender and did his art only in his off-hours. Initially he carved bas-reliefs and gave them away to friends. "But," he says, "that got out of hand, so I carved a woodcut and found I could print lots of copies." In 1974, when the Volcano Art Center Gallery first put his prints on sale for $2 each and sold seven in the first month, his life as a full-time artist began. The Gallery now carries over 225 Varez prints and has sold hundreds of thousands of them. After all these years, Dietrich still personally prints and signs each image by hand, still refuses to number his prints, and still maintains his reasonable prices.

 
Harry D. Wishard was born and raised in Hawai'i. He was led gently into life as an artist by his uncle, the painter Lloyd Sexton, when he was quite young--and he has been painting daily for over 30 years. He works exclusively in oils, primarily on cotton canvas. His palette consists of a large array of colors, sometimes up to twenty. Harry's work has been exhibited in at the Honolulu Academy of Art, the Wailoa Center, and at galleries throughout the state. He has eight solo exhibitions and taken part in many more group exhibitions. Harry lives and works in North Kohala with his wife and two daughters. His close observation of nature while diving, fishing, hunting, and hiking allows his work to represent reality with almost photographic truth. "My paintings depict the unique island life and tropical landscape of Hawai'i. Philosophically, I hope to create for the viewer a respect and awe of Hawai'i, its history, land, and people. That respect is something I want to translate into a desire to conserve and preserve all that is unique to the islands. While scrutiny of my paintings would reveal some 'impressionistic' strokes, my work is primarily realism, designed to take the viewer to the heart of the painting. My paintings represent emotions and evoke feelings more than they depict structure or geography. I want the viewer to feel the warmth and tranquility of a sunset and not just enjoy the pretty colors. Technique never drives my work, emotion does."