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.

Happy Presidents Day

I seem to be one of the few here in the Wailuku Business District that didn't receive the memo that today was a holiday... Presidents Day. Banks, Post Offices, Courts, State & County Buildings, etc. are all shut down for the day, which suits me just fine. No traffic, no calls, and a chance to get some much needed editing and paperwork completed without the usual distractions. So far, I managed to complete the final edit for the new CD project for Phil & Angela Benoit (the final shots having been finished last evening) and make the bank deposit. I've also managed to make my final selections for submission to ART MAUI, one of our state's most prestigious juried art exhibitions and always a source for weeks of controversy in the local art world afterwards. Future potential controversy aside, my three submissions have been selected and printed and now await transport to the frame shop. Let's pray they can get all three framed and ready by receiving day on Feb. 25th. It's been more than twenty years since I last submitted work for this show and I have some new work I am very excited about. Let's hope this year's juror, Ken Bushnell, feels the same way. Suddenly I'm feeling a need to get my personal, non-commercial work in front of potential patrons and this is certainly one of the best shows for that sort of opportunity.

And, in keeping with the holiday... I shall take advantage of the opportunity to post an outtake from a day I spent following former president George H.W. Bush when he visited the island back in 2005. Several days prior to the event, I received a call from the PR Director at one of Wailea's mega-resorts asking for some very personal information for a Secret Service background check. The client would not tell me who I was to be photographing when the appointed day arrived... everything was being kept very hush-hush. Certain I would fail the security check for any number of very good reasons, I turned over the info and forgot all about the possible assignment, figuring there was no way in hell I would make it through that sort of scrutiny. Strangely enough, a couple of days later, the PR Director called back and told me to be at the resort at the proscribed day & time. Still no word on who the subject was to be... I was told to "just be there and be ready".

OK... I am, if nothing else, a professional. I show up as directed. Shortly after my arrival, a motorcade of shiny, new SUV's pull up to the porte cochre of the hotel. From those SUV's came a small army of Secret Service agents, all dressed in matching Hilo Hattie's blue floral aloha shirts, shorts, black socks & black wing-tip shoes. Each agent sported a wire dangling from their ear. Ostensibly, we can assume that the hideous aloha attire was an attempt to blend in and appear inconspicuous. Word, fellas... you all stuck out like a sore thumb.

Anyway... after "securing" the immediate area, one of the agents signaled what must have been the "all clear" and out of one of the center SUV's, former President Bush stepped out into the sunlight, stretched his legs and proceeded forward for a quick meet-n-greet with the small group of assembled hotel administrators. I spent the rest of the afternoon following the President around, snapping pics of him with VIP's and getting oriented to his new tropical surroundings.

The funny thing about this whole event is that my mother, who has never really quite understood what it was that I do for a living, was now suddenly very proud and apparently spent the next week bragging to anyone who would listen about how her son had gotten the opportunity to hang out & photograph an ex-President.

Finally, some parental validation!