Hula

Original Sold

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I’m a conservationist – even a bit of a scavenger. I feel a strong need to make use of everything I can.  This painting, at least painted in this shape and size, came to be because I had this piece of paper that was 20″x40.”  I’ve painted a few 40″x40″ paintings out of Arches 60″x40″ sheets of watercolor paper, leaving me leftover pieces. It’s good paper, I must make use of it!  

I toyed with the idea of making two 20″x20″ paintings of somethiing.  But, I had this wide image…  I’ve been contemplating painting this image for much longer than I’ve had the paper.  It’s yet another from the no-longer-there lily ponds on the southside of Kauai.  It’s old enough that it was actually taken with a film camera.  I was attracted to it because of the intense blue.  It took some collaging in Photoshop – I’m so grateful to my former boss, Steve Kimball for teaching me these skills. They’ve become integral to my art-making and help me realize the artistic visions of the painters in my groups too.

I started this piece on the previous year’s trip to Kauai – which ended up being a trip when I really needed to rest and hardly painted.  Once home, I wasn’t feeling it. I needed to move on to paint the hot colors of Jubilee.  I brought it along on the following year’s trip, when I didhave the energy to paint more.  

It was a painting that was a challenge to appreciate myself.  Though there were moments when it was very fun to paint, it was coming through quite loose and imprecise – not how I usually paint, and I wasn’t sure about the result.  But friends and students liked it, so I pressed on. I painted all the flowers last. This helped. I needed them painted in to see any dimension.  

I was in Light Rain scanning it for making prints with my friend Julia, who, at the time worked there.  Musing on what to call it, I thought about floating, and the primordial soup and somewhere in there I used the term “dancing.”  Julia kept saying “I like ‘dancing.'”

I had also been playing around with possible Hawaiian words.  So, what is “dancing” in Hawaiian?  “Hula” hit the right note.  On top of it being easy to say – and – remember, I looked up the history and legend surrounding “hula.”  The legend goes that the gods created the world through sacred chant and dance – hula. Out of the primordial soup dances the world.

June 2015 – 15″x30″ – Watercolor on paper