The World Has Changed Since Last We Met

Let's see... so much has transpired since last time we met here. There was a BIG earthquake, in some places a BIG tsunami - other, smaller tsunamis elsewhere, but tsunamis nonetheless. Somewhere to the northwest of me, a nuclear reactor has gone all meltdown on us and far, far to the northeast of me, the US has begun to embark on yet it's third war in a place where we have no business... that is, if you exclude the business of OIL. Limbaugh & Coulter remind us daily of the overwhelming health benefits of a little radiation. After all, what's a few sub-molecular sized bullets amongst friends, eh? Populations of entire cities in Japan scramble for shelter, food and a safe place to begin the process of recovery, while radical US Governors seek to quickly transfer that last remaining vestiges of public wealth of any form into the hands of private greedheads under the ruse of budget balancing. FUCK YOU Milton Friedman & your whole theory of ecomonics! Just like Karl Marx, you forgot to consider the individual greed factor when devising your revolutionary ideas.


Here on the home front, I'm both sad & extremely happy to say that there's been precious little time to take the events of the last week or so in, much less to process any of it in any meaningful way. The work situation seems to be rebounding with a sudden fury... selfishly good news in the midst of an otherwise global shitstorm. 


Art Maui, the island's annual juried exhibition is again open to the public through April 2nd. Your's Truly has again bamboozled the judges into accepting work for this year's show.


Work has begun on new images for an advertising campaign for one of the island's most popular tourist attractions, another campaign begun for our island's one & only vineyard & wine producer, an editorial, "at home on Maui" profile of one of our better known-international musical celebrities now in the can & destined for the future pages of MAUI NO KA OI Magazine and today, two editorial pieces shot a couple of months ago appeared in the pages of Modern Luxury Hawaii Magazine, now on a newsstand near you.


Yesterday, after a busy day of gallery sitting during the weekly resort gallery exhibitions at The Four Seasons Resort, it was off to Lahaina until late in the night to work on a new music video to coincide with the soon-to-be released second album from THE THROWDOWNS. Cover art for that project is scheduled to be produced in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned.

On the video set with THE THROWDOWNS

And, there's ongoing imaging for Hawaii recording stars HAPA and side projects for HAPA founder & friend of many years, Barry Flanagan.

Ron Kaualau & Barry Flanagan / HAPA, Mach III

Tomorrow morning, there's a conference call with the creative team of Hawaii advertising giant, LCA-Anthology to finalize pre-production details on a new campaign for one of the two Hawaii based airlines. This one is going to be both extreme fun and very challenging, very conceptual in nature... something to really sink my teeth into! Early next month takes us to the Island of Kauai for what is beginning to look like a 9 to 10 day architectural project at several resorts.

To all of the above, you can add coverage of an all day outdoor music festival held at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center last week and the usual & never-ending stuff one is forced to do when running a business... all of those end of the year tax preparations, bill paying, bill collecting.... it never ends.

Mark, Steven & Kathy framed.  Mark & Steven, members of a tech crew without peer & Kathy, poplar MC,performer and guiding light of Manao Radio

So today, after a long night of video production and a very full previous two weeks, I am exhausted. I should be shooting wine bottles in the studio instead of typing. It will have to wait until tomorrow... the brain muscles need flexing of another sort for the moment.


Lastly, allow me to lead you to a very fine editorial piece written by Maui News SCENE editor Rick Chatenever from last week, eruditely stating - in the public prints no less - a sentiment most of us within the Maui Art Community have been saying amongst ourselves for some time now. Rick's column was welcome contrast to another review on the matter appearing between the pages of a competing exercise in fish-wrap journalism, penned by an author sharing the same initials with the revered peanut butter, jelly & banana sandwich & instantly recognizable by the brown stain surrounding his lips whenever he takes up pen to heap accolades on the artist who's true medium is the Art of Noise  Oh well, the squeaky wheel will always get the grease & Rick's piece, "Art. Or not", found HERE, was a delightfully unexpected greasing, well deserved & long overdue.


Well said, Rick. One man's cutting edge is another's batshittery...


Let's not forget to take a moment to remember those people around the world suffering from tectonic upheavals, military might, corporate greed, the politicians highly paid to pimp for them and the very real possibility of atomic exposure to large portions of our planet... oh wait... that's good for you, right?


Selah.