Crazy Shirts revisited | The Honolulu Advertiser

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Crazy Shirts revisited | The Honolulu Advertiser | Hawaii's Newspaper

Posted on: Wednesday, December 25, 2002

THE LEFT LANE
Crazy Shirts revisited

Advertiser Staff and News Services

Was a time when Crazy Shirts was a way of life in Hawai'i. People waited to see what wacky idea the company's designers would come up with next. Some Islanders collected particular shirt series, wearing their favorites until the fabric frayed into nothingness. Now the company has released a limited-edition series of the shirt designs judged favorites over the company's 38-year history. They polled customers through their Web site and stores here and elsewhere to come up with a list of five, which are in stores now.

The five: The original three-color logo (1964); Rat Race (1971), the best seller in company history; Surfer Hawaii, 1974; Big Wave Dave's (1986) and Buck Necked (1994). In case you're wondering, there are no Kliban cats, because Crazy Shirts doesn't have the rights to that line of artwork anymore.

Year of the Ram

According to the Chinese lunar calendar, the Year of the Ram begins Feb. 1, 2003, and ends Jan. 21, 2004. To hail the celebration, the U.S. Postal Service will issue a 37-cent stamp on Jan. 15 — the 11th stamp in the award-winning series for the lunar New Year by Honolulu artist Clarence Lee.

This series began in 1993 with the Year of the Rooster stamp, followed by stamps for the Year of the Dog, Boar, Rat, Ox, Tiger, Hare, Dragon, Snake and Horse. The Postal Service asked Lee to design a stamp to commemorate the Chinese New Year in 1993, and it was so popular he's been producing them ever since. First day of issue covers for the 2003 lunar New Year stamp are available from the Postal Service's Stamp Fulfillment Services by phoning (800) 782-6724 after Jan. 15.

'I'iwi in White House

A bit of Hawai'i adorns this year's White House Christmas tree, which is themed "All Creatures Great and Small": ornaments made by Islanders, including this contemporary representation of the indigenous 'i'iwi bird by Ira Ono of Volcano, one of more than a dozen artists here who submitted designs at the White House's request for the tree in the Blue Room.

Ono had had been working with the images from monarchy-era stamps for another project, so he decided to use them for the ornament. Ono made the scarlet Hawaiian honeycreeper from clay and covered it with reproductions of an 1800s Kamehameha I stamp, creating a feather-like pattern. The eyes and beak are clay, and the feet are wire.

Correction: Clarence Lee, Honolulu creator of the Chinese lunar calendar postal stamps, was misidentified in a previous version of this story because of a news service error.

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