.: : . .Dehumidifier. . . .

I live in Hai'ku.

This is one of the wettest climates one can live in. We are in the jungle. We keep telling people that and they think we mean we live in trees.

Some out here do live in trees or dug into the side of a hill. But most of us, we have houses, regular homes with roofs, doors, and windows. We even have appliances. But we do live in the jungle.

I have a King bed, carpet, a gas kitchen, a back porch surrounded by green of every shade, a stream behind the house and a bathroom with two shower heads--- the house and the location are amazing.

Except it's dank. Everything is dank. In upcountry Maui, when you are on the hilltops, or perched somehow to receive sun, it all dries out in the daytime. But in Haiku, on Holokai Rd., it can rain for weeks and never get sun. We are in the valley-- better known as a gulch- where the earth resembles a digestive system, everything is decomposing.

If I leave the refrigerator open for a few minutes, water drips from the seams. Anything in the closet that doesn't get washed every week starts to get digested by tiny earthen filaments floating in from the jungle outside my windows. My favorite photographs of my birthday last year and my nieces are molding.

Yesterday, someone mentioned to me that their friend had gotten mold in their lungs. They had to move to Kihei where it's dry. My roommate Jessica works with Malik, one of the leading nutrition and Chinese medicine specialists, who told her when she moved in that she couldn't stay. As I went to bed, the smell of mold crept up from my sheets and pillows. I sprinkled an essential oil of pine on the bed and went to sleep determined to be done with this.

So today, I fixed the dryer upstairs and I bought a dehumidifier.

Everything is different.

The dehumidifier has been on since 4pm (8 hours) and I have emptied about 100 pints of water. My thumbs are bleeding from wrench and metal scratches from installing the dryer. Right now the dehumidifier is in the closet, shooting hot air through the dank clothes.

I am realizing how completely sensitive I am to my environment.

I have lived here for 11 months. I moved in when the rainy season was just ending. That is what I was told. Now, I am told that the rainy season is just beginning.

My questions are:

• Why haven't I gotten mold in my lungs? How would I know if I did?
  
• If I haven't, at what point is this all mind over matter?
  
• Why have I been fine for 11 months? Am I just running the dehumidifier out of fear?
• What else have I been neglecting?
  

I've looked for a dehumidifier on craigslist for 3 months, starting when my new housemates, Jen and Jessica, moved into the house upstairs, and we started a cleanse for a month. Today, I finally went to Lowes (much better than Home Depot) and purchased the remaining dryer component and the dehumidifier.

Plants sprouting mushrooms
My room has been dank for months
I live in Haiku

Personal Note: Work Play and Focus

I've got my restaurant work down to about 2 days a week. My new relationship to my job waiting tables is that it provides me a job that I do well, don't have to think about and I get to spend time with a bunch of people I really enjoy. (Nice to get out of the isolation of the studio).

The restaurant is Hali'imaile General Store which in my view is one of the best restaurants in Maui. An operating wing of the company is Celebrations Catering, one of the largest and best Maui caterers. They also cater weddings and special events.

I spent an amazing day yesterday in Hana with my roommates Jenn and Nyema. It was clearing, yet we had stayed up 'til 6 am the night before with 30 of our friends initiating our home with a great party and I was exhausted. Today I went to the waterfall with Rachel.

All the while, knowing I had soooo much work to do (My To Do List):

1. Finish commissioned artwork for New York client. 5' x 3' painting
2. Complete and post on youtube, video of Source (interactive arts festival in Maui)
3. Promote The Black Box. The latest version is finished and available as a DVD. I want edIT from the Glitch Mob to provide the soundtrack and as luck would have it, he is coming out to perform at the Source fun-raiser in two weeks. The Black Box (original version) is on the internet, however the current version is only on DVD for now.
   
4. Create the latest Aloha Art Update to promote my artwork and share funky art news. I need to get this out before the War and Peace Art Show closes at the epOxybOx in Venice Beach, CA.
5. Find a gallery in SF/Oakland for the War and Peace Art Show that is traveling across the country.
   
6. Send Invoice for Website Work on HGS website.
7. pay bills, pay ticket, clean room so it's zen, prepare to go to SXSW film festival in Austin in March where the war and peace show will be...
   

I'll post in a couple days on how I'm doing.

Manifest.

Close-up of "Burning Angels, Hungry Ghosts and a Million Little Bubbles" now showing at the epOxybOx "War and Peace Art Show".

"Burning Angels, Hungry Ghosts, and A Million Little Bubbles"

If George W. Bush were to meditate, what would his experience be?

The notion that George W. Bush lives in a bubble, isolated from the opinions of the American Citizenry and the world around him, is a projection that we put upon him to relieve our own guilt and responsibility for America's war in Iraq. The fact is, that we as Americans are quite successful, in our own right, at living out joyful lives during war; each of us in our own little bubbles. We have pretty nice bubbles, especially here in Maui.

Like all projections, there is truth in it. Bush has a dogma he prescribes to that, given much external dialogue, would soon reveal it's inconsistencies. So, better for W. to remain in his bubble. Otherwise, the vision he is holding, his vision of freedom, which seems to include a religious polarity of us against them, would falter.

In the title, I am referencing Bush's self defeating starkly dualistic view of the world and religion. I am also referencing the public castigation of author James Frey for lying in his book A Million Little Pieces. Our failure to even censor the President for his lies is a painful hypocrisy.

In early discussions of what to name the art exhibition for which this art piece was created, Maui Artists for Peace wanted something bold and audacious that demanded an end to the war in Iraq. As more artists joined, the sentiment was expressed that it does not serve to fight for peace. To achieve peace, we must be and express peace. It has been said: heal yourself, heal your family, heal your community and the world will be healed. The question is how to manifest peace. The danger is isolating oneself on an island in the middle of the Pacific to the point where in other parts of the world, people experiencing the worst kinds of death and violence, seem a world away.

It was Dennis Kucinich who said, before the war started, that we must have compassion and hold the President's hand as we walk him back from the abyss. In this painting, a plastic bubble (made from petroleum) surrounds President Bush as he sits, meditating in the lotus position.

To manifest peace, I manifest a peaceful George W. Bush.