It's art at every stop on First Fridays downtown
By Victoria Gail-White
Advertiser Art Critic
Hot glass, hot lava and a host of hot spots: If you'd like to spice up an evening and join a lively crowd of artists and art aficionados, stroll through the downtown gallery scene on the first Friday of every month. You'll find opening receptions, refreshments, entertainment and demonstrations — all free — from 5 to 9 p.m. From Bishop to Smith Street, it's a lively, art-infused atmosphere with a revelation around every corner.
First Friday was born of the collaborative efforts of Kim Coffee-Isaak, Jodi Endicott, Sandra Pohl and several downtown galleries and businesses.
"The thing that was exciting about the very first First Friday was that everyone came downtown for the arts and the artists," says Coffee-Isaak, managing director of The ARTS at Marks Garage, executive director of Hawaii Craftsmen and First Friday administrative director. "The meetings and plans for future events are exciting — things will become more fun and participatory for the entire family."
Thinking it was high time for an inspiration expedition, I plotted a course of action.
First stop: Ming's Antiques (1144 Bethel St.), where master feng-shui practitioner Clarence Lau gave a 30-minute lecture. Sitting on antique Chinese benches, a handful of us listened to Lau's theories: the differences between American and Hong Kong feng shui; the importance of the flow of magnetic energy fields to our well-being; the thousand-year-old scientific approach to balancing those energies in a home; and the purpose of calculating one's birthday into the equation. A special feng-shui compass, he says, is his "boss." Lau teaches at Kaimuki Community School for Adults (733-8460).
Ming Chew, our gracious host and owner of Ming's Antiques, is planning a lecture on jewelry using antique Chinese beads for the next First Friday on July 4.
Second Stop: Atelier 4 Fine Art Gallery (841 Bishop Street, Suite 155, enter on Queen Street), a gallery owned and operated by artists, celebrating the opening of a show of new works by Alshaa Rayne and Julie Kerns Schaper.
Schaper batiks her still-life images on rice paper with acrylics and watercolors. Rayne, known for her poetic trash-and-found art, has successfully challenged herself in her glass painting "You Won't Believe My Pig Karma."
Painting on glass is a complicated reverse process. "If you don't like something," says Rayne, "you have to scrape it off, clean it, spray the exposed glass with fixative and let it dry." She also has collages of fantasy figures on square wood panels. This show will be up through July 2. The next First Friday reception at Atelier 4 will feature the work of Mark N. Brown and Scottie Flamm.
Third Stop: The Contemporary Museum at First Hawaiian Bank (999 Bishop St.), where the talents of guitarist Michael Tanenbaum accompanied an exhibit of paintings and prints by Marc Katano and Louis Pohl. Tanenbaum's classical music seemed to turn the bank acoustically into a church, and it was no surprise that folks gathered just to hear him play.
Los Angeles artist Katano's abstract works fill the downstairs exhibition space. The distinctive mark-making quality of his compositions give a sense of order to the repetitive elliptical shapes. Large areas of warm and cool-toned earth colors in "Sluice 2 No. 14" (44.5- by 30-inch monoprint on paper), "Soft Spot" (79- by 79-inch acrylic on paper) and "Tide" (79- by 79-inch acrylic on paper) are reminiscent of the extraordinary shifts of pattern that can be seen during autumn's foliage display. "Ultrablue 21" (30.5- by 30.5-inch acrylic on canvas) and "Redline 8" (42.5- by 42.5-inch acrylic on canvas) have an overabundance of white-outlined ellipse shapes on background colors of either red or blue. The masses of this lovely shape trick the eye and appear to dance and move, as if they were cells captured on a glass slide and seen under a microscope.
The upstairs gallery is on fire with "Volcanoes: Paintings and Prints by Louis Pohl." The late artist created the mixed-media prints and oil-on-canvas paintings between 1960 and 1995. Steam vents, cinder cones, lava tubes and fissures expose the dramatic beauty of Hawai'i's active volcanoes. A master of visually interpreting the deeper sense of nature's spirit, he worked from memory and imagination.
The energy literally vibrates in the sizzling red-and-black "Volcano Series XI" (mixed-media print, circa 1970) and the refreshing water-and-night-sky blues of "Volcano Series: Ancient Lava Flow" (mixed media print, circa 1970). "Eruption No. 2" (oil on canvas, circa 1980) is a 36- by 54-inch painting that majestically abstracts the elements of earth, fire, water and air (a potent feng-shui visual potpourri). The exhibit will be up through Sept. 23 and can be viewed during banking hours and on the next First Friday. (First Hawaiian Bank offers a special First Friday parking deal — $2 for the entire evening.)
Fourth Stop: The ARTS at Marks Garage (1159 Nu'uanu Ave.), where a real furnace with molten glass (set up on the outside lawn area) was being dipped into by the first "Keeper of The Flame" (show reviewed June 1). The Hot Glass Hui, presently exhibiting at Marks Garage, gave a sizzling glass-blowing demonstration that began with Dave Merkel. A hypnotized crowd gaped as a long metal tube was dipped into a 2,200-degree furnace to extract a gob of soda-lime glass. After blowing into the tube, Merkel put it into an opening in the furnace, what glass workers call a "glory hole," and slowly spun it. More blowing and shaping with a marver plate (a metal slab) continued until a small vessel took shape. Richard Duggan, next up, took another long metal tube and began the process again while Merkel re-hydrated.
For the July 4 First Friday, a raku pottery-firing demonstration is planned, which will coincide with the juried 27th Hawai'i Craftsmen Raku Ho'olaule'a exhibit.
Fifth Stop: Pegge Hopper Gallery (1164 Nu'uanu Ave.) for a silent auction of a collection of Roy Venters' found-glass collaged hearts. Reasonably priced and colorfully executed, they added a bit of anticipation to the evening's ticking clock; the auction ended at closing time.
Sixth Stop: Studio of Roy Venters (1160 Nu'uanu Ave.), which has a surplus of Venters' usually-unusual collectibles, paintings, found-object constructions and artworks.
Seventh Stop: Salon.5, a new venue in the old location of Salon 5 (1160-A Nu'uanu Ave.). Owner Rich Richardson is committed to showing new works by artists on the edge in a salon-like atmosphere every First Friday. Works presently on display by Richardson, San Shoppell, Diane Carr and Ali Maloney jolt our perspective with confrontational concepts.
Eighth Stop: Got Art? (1136 Nu'uanu Ave.) a soon-to-be-open gallery and gift shop owned by Debbie Mitchell. Wild, crazy-painted furniture and platform shoes by Mitchell, along with artwork by a handful of contemporary local artists, show promise in giving this venue a fresh voice in the downtown scene.
Ninth Stop: Studio 1 Visual and Performing Arts Gallery (1 North King St.), owned by father and son Jack and John Frick. This gallery opened nine months ago and has quickly become a major player downtown.
"Chinatown Photography," a curated show of digital, color, silver-gelatin and fiber-based prints, is on display until June 30.
Local photographers James Wellner, Martha Nakamura, Jim Foster, Lew Andrews, Phillippe Gross and Duane Preble exquisitely portray the intriguing aspects of the people and parts of a Chinatown often overlooked.
A special Latin event is planned for the next First Friday with a fine-art exhibition and three musical offerings (the last, a dance band, will continue playing until 2 a.m.).
With any luck, the Hawai'i State Art Museum will participate in future First Fridays. Its presence was sorely missed during this event.
I imagine that First Fridays will continue to delight us — as long as we continue to support the efforts of the many dedicated individuals who organize this wonderful-walking artscapade.
There were more places to visit but, alas, I was already on Cloud 9 and ballooned with images and ideas.
A full gallery, walking tour and parking-guide map is available at any of the participating venues. For more information about the next First Friday, phone 521-2903 or take a look at artsatmarks.com.
And for the grand finale on July 4, there will be a fireworks display at Ala Moana Beach Park!
