Tell me about your paintings.​

My paintings create space.  They are watercolor of the Eastern style.  I love to paint the ocean, New England, blue and grey, mountains and deserts...They were originally designed as personal post cards that I sent to friends and relatives and realized others might like that too and found that people were framing and saving the cards they received.​

 

You are an author too.  Is there a connection between your paintings and The Last Kahuna?

Yes, the Last Kahuna is about young people coming of age.  That means taking up the responsibility and identity of not only adults, but very skilled and professional adults. In order to do that, a person has to be able to see and make space. The setting of the last Kahuna is the South Pacific - that means, ocean, sky and islands, winds, clouds and rain and I like to paint all of those. The last Kahuna is a visual of space, time, matter and mist and the tenacity of the human spirit.​

 

What is your background, where are you from?

I grew up on two Islands in Hawaii - Oahu and Maui.  I lived on the mountains on Maui and the beaches of Oahu.  When one does not have anything to compare it to, they think it is totally natural to be surrounded by paradise, until one is exposed to the inner cities of the mainland and has to live there.  I have always loved the water - I did a lot of surfing, spear fishing and swimming.  I also did a lot of solo hiking and surfing and years later found out those were not such safe things to do! I was always interested in the back trails and unusual phenomena of the islands, such as waterfalls and rainbows, early morning sun rises.  I grew to appreciate the history and culture of the islands. I spent a lot of time at sea - both in the Navy and on a private yacht where I studied communication and practical philosophy for life. I trained as a minister and counsellor to help people unfold their past and their abilities and to see how much more they were worth than they ever thought they were.​

 

You mention that you have haikus to go with some of your paintings.  Can you explain some more about that?

Haiku is a Japanese art.  Hawaii has a culture which is a mixture of Eastern and Polynesian. So, I was drawn to that type of art and poetry. Haiku is all about appreciating a single moment and that kind of appreciation is important to enjoying life.  Haiku is also about nature and vignettes between nature and man.  One of the fundamentals of Haiku, if you really understand Haiku, is inviting the reader to see what the author envisions and allowing the reader to create or imagine his own vision.  My paintings, I hope, do the same thing.​

 

As you are creating, what effect do you envision your art will have, whether written or graphic?

The creation of space and the dominance of the human spirit over the barriers and challenges of the physical world... the potentialities of the human spirit... the dream of freedom for the human spirit which has been partially imprisoned for a long time.  I hope to communicate all of these with my art.  There is the creation of beauty and that creation is not always universal - different people consider different things beautiful - my art is about what I think is beautiful and I would hope to capture the appreciation of beauty in others.​

 

Any final thoughts? 

The refinement of the human spirit into a better man is my basic goal.  The refinement of truth and knowledge into a practical form and media. I think imagination is a very valuable commodity however, it runs into a lot of vested interests who try to dampen its attractiveness.   Freeing the individual of those fixed ideas and letting imagination morph into reality brings about a thriving and vital civilization.​

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