Aloha Art Update #2 : July 2005

Aloha Friends!

Thanks for your feedback on the previous edition of Gabe's Aloha Art Update. I received a lot of fun comments. As usual, I intend to give you a little taste of life in Maui as well as a little art education and new this month, some gossip (which may not last long). With the summer solstice behind us, the sun has started moving south again. On June 21st, the sun reached it’s apex – to us in the gallery, that’s to the far right of the horizon, tucking itself just behind the burger place across the street. When I started working here in December the sun was so far south it would have been out of the frame of this picture far to the left.

(1). LAHAINA SUMMER
So the days are long and the weather is hot. What else is new? Well, last time I told you about the upcoming canoe parade—it was quite a fabulous spectacle with traditional hula dancers and beautiful carved out canoes rolling by right in front of the gallery. This picture is taken right in front of the gallery. But it was nothing compared to the festivities on the Fourth of July! Lahaina’s two biggest street parties are the Fourth and Halloween. Front street was all afire with partiers and fireworks. Not the best night for selling art but great fun.

(2). THE GOSSIP COLUMN
I recently read that readership for all the gossip magazines like US, Star, People, the Enquirer are up 25% over last year. Why? Who knows. But it makes me think I better get some gossip in the Aloha Art Update if I am going to maintain my audience. So here goes: On the Maui Star Watch Beat—Chandler from Friends was on the island. He went to Longhi’s with some friends and had dinner. Then, the next day he went to Moana’s in Paia and had brunch. He was on the $59 bike tour that goes to the top of Haleakala. The bike guys called ahead to the restaurant to say they had a VIP—the bike tour includes a fixed breakfast-- and the VIP wanted two extra eggs. So he got the extra eggs. The most surprising things about living in Maui is how fast word travels. The last word on Chandler came from my dentist. His last day he paid for all of his friends to take a helicopter ride around the island. Oh who cares! Maybe the gossip thing isn’t my bag.

(3). FENG-SHUI ART
Entering your home, what is the first thing a visitor sees? According to the Chinese design art of feng-shui, what we place on the opposite wall of the entrance to a room affects our “fame” or how others perceive us. Whether or not feng-shui is an attractive system for you, the impact of art on our lives and our environment is often underestimated. According to feng-shui, color is one of the most potent ways to shift energy. When considering your next art acquisition, you might be interested in some of the traditional associations with color. GREEN: Health and balance, compassion,understanding, RED: Vigor and vitality, raw physical energy, passion, YELLOW: Mental acuity, intellectual discourse, communication, curiosity, METALLICS: physical beauty, material wealth, inner radiance. This might be why Erté's "Golden Fleece" is such a powerful and clearing work of art.
For more information: http://www.funkyenough.com/feng_shui_art.html

(4). GET YOUR 40 MILLION: SEARCH THE ATTIC!
Alex Matter is convinced that he’s got 32 original Jackson Pollock paintings in his possession. Matter found the artwork, wrapped in brown paper bags in his father’s storage locker. The value of 32 Pollock’s like this is somewhere in the neighborhood of $40 million. But just when Alex thought things were getting good, a leading Pollock expert questioned their athenticity. Now we’ve got a great highbrow art controversy! The Pollock foundation, which disbanded years ago, is thinking of reforming to resolve the dispute.
http://tinyurl.com/7tkp7

(5). ART OF THE MONTH: “FLASH” BY ANDY WARHOL
Many of us are aware that Andy Warhol is responsible for the quote: "In the future, everybody will be world famous for 15 minutes." His most well known subject is superficial: “Campbell’s Soup”. But did you know that he created some very compelling and historically documenting work? The image at left is not just a white canvas, it is the newly acquired Warhol image of JFK. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963, shocked the nation and the world. In his portfolio “Flash - - - - November 22, 1963”, Andy Warhol recounted the four days from the assassination of the President to his funeral on November 25, 1963. The artist's subject was not so much the events themselves as the continuous barrage of print and broadcast media coverage. Warhol was fascinated by the omnipresent emotional power of the media. He used both the text from the story in the papers and images broadcast across television to create this historically powerful work.

(6). TECHNOLOGY TIP AND HAWAIIAN WORD OF THE MONTH COMBINED!
Anyway, If you liked that Warhol Quote, you can view many more on Wikiquote.com: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol
One of my favorite Warhol quotes is:

“Dying is the most embarrassing thing that can ever happen to you, because someone's got to take care of all your details.”

Wikiquote stems from Wikipedia (I am not making this up), which is an online encyclopedia with content generated entirely by volunteers who freely edit the database live. You can actually go to the site and edit the encyclopedia yourself. The name comes from the Hawaiian word “Wiki” which means quick. Since you were going to do it anyway, here’s Matthew Perry on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Perry_(actor)

Why does the Aloha Art Update keep including technology tips? In my previous life I was living in the SF Bay Area and was immersed in the tech industry. So I keep up. From the feedback I got on last edition, the Google Maps link was one of the favorites.


Until next time,
Mahalo Nui Loa,
Gabe