Late last year, Miya Tsukazaki started looking for walls. ADVERTISING Late last year, Miya Tsukazaki started looking for walls. A Hilo native, Tsukazaki has spent the past two years traveling and collaborating with partner David “MEGGS” Hooke, an Australian artist,
Late last year, Miya Tsukazaki started looking for walls.
A Hilo native, Tsukazaki has spent the past two years traveling and collaborating with partner David “MEGGS” Hooke, an Australian artist, as the duo launched arts-based organization Temple Children. Temple Children coordinates social- and environmental-focused creative projects centered around building stronger communities and bringing people together.
One of those ways is via public art.
“That’s become a really big phenomenon,” Tsukazaki said Friday. “Murals and public art are popping up all over the world, (in) tiny towns all over.”
And last week, two murals popped up in Hilo.
A third will be complete by the middle of the month. Temple Children worked with its regional director Ashley Kierkiewicz and a host of businesses, from those who now have murals on their formerly bare walls to those such as HPM who contributed supplies.
Tsukazaki said bringing public art to Hilo was the first major initiative for Temple Children.
“We’re hoping to do this project all over the world, but Hilo is very special, obviously, because it’s my home,” she said. “The reason we wanted to put so much effort into Hilo is because … I really feel it needs the revitalization. A lot of us do; there’s people doing their part all over.”
“There’s a lot of support,” she continued. “It’s such a special place.”
The first Temple Children mural was painted back in December, shortly after Tsukazaki began her initial wall search.
It’s a MEGGS work on the side of Oasis Skate Shop, depicting skater Tony Alva catching air through a lush landscape of ulu and lehua blossoms.
That project was also a community effort, with Hilo artist Arik May, a friend of Tsukazaki’s, connecting the team with skate shop owner Dan Madsden. The neighboring linen supply business gave the OK to work from its property. Keiki turned out to help with the painting itself.
“After we did that mural, the community responded so positively,” Tsukazaki said. Another Temple Children goal, she said, is to show local keiki that being an artist is a viable career path.
The two newest murals, both finished in anticipation of First Friday, are portals of color, driven by the styles of three different artists, yet united in the themes of sustainability and community that Temple Children hopes to promote.
“I wanted it to have some kind of reflection on the values of the project,” California artist Lauren YoungSmith, known as Lauren YS, said of the bold, contrast-driven work now on the side of the Hilo Town Tavern.
Like most muralists, YoungSmith also incorporates personal touches into her art: This particular mural is inspired by her younger sister, who researches astrobiology at NASA.
YoungSmith often references her sister while painting, but the mural evolved according to its canvas as well. While in the early stages of painting this week, YoungSmith realized the satellite dish on the side of the tavern wall could be a moon. The space theme took off.
“It all tied together for me,” YoungSmith said, describing the final result as an “environmentalist everywoman with a futurist spin on it.”
The new mural adjacent to Short N Sweet bakery &Cafe was commissioned by nonprofit Energy Excelerator and inspired by Hawaii’s clean energy goals. Vibrant hues of blue splash against the greens and yellows of a “sustainability boat,” as Laie, Oahu-based artist Matthew Ortiz described it.
The boat is packed with details: an aquaponics system, a green roof, solar panels, water catchment, surfboards, a halfpipe and a wa‘a. Sitting at the center of the boat is a bakery painted in homage to Roberts Bakery.
“Maria (Short, owner of Short N Sweet) explained to us (that) was really a hallmark of old Hilo,” Ortiz said.
Ortiz worked with Hooke on the project, a new twist for the mural designer. Typically, he works with wife Roxanne as part of artist duo Wooden Wave, but the couple is expecting their first child and Roxanne could not make it to Hilo.
“It’s been a really fun collaboration between MEGGS and I,” Ortiz said. “He’s been doing a lot of his style with the graphic nature of some of these leaves, and that allows me time to work on the details…we’re trying to bring in as much native flora as we can. It wouldn’t be representative of (Hilo) if it didn’t have some serious foliage.”
“We want people to feel a sense of joy, and then we want them to have those conversations about what’s going on in the piece, because there is so much detail,” he said.
“It encourages the viewer to come in close.”
Having a baby on the way made working on a sustainability piece “especially relevant,” Ortiz said.
Late Friday afternoon, the artists broke out thin-tipped brushes to complete the last details of the mural, which was made entirely with house paint.
“It takes you back to when you were a kid, and you were like ‘I got a brush, I got some paint, let’s make a mess,’” Ortiz said of the materials choice.
Soon, the boat would have its name — Kalamakua — painted in.
“It’s the idea of bearing a torch for the next generation, carrying a light,” Ortiz said.
Email Ivy Ashe at iashe@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
