The Hawaii Watercolor Society holds two juried shows each year, the Members Only show and the other is an Open Juried Show. This year our juror was world renowned watercolorist Joseph Zbukvic. Of over 137 entries, he selected 40 works to be displayed at the East West Center Gallery on the campus of the University of Hawaii. There were also paintings loaned by the family of the society’s founder, Hon Chew Hee so it was a double honor to hang in this show with Hee’s work and to be selected by Zbukvic.

I will be holding a watercolor workshop for all levels but aimed at beginners. The workshop is fully booked and it will be exciting to meet new people and introduce them to watercolor and share my passion for watercolor. Also exciting is one of my students was also juried into this year’s show. The East West Center also hung watercolors from their collection in the adjoining room so there are a host of watercolorists represented in the exhibit. My favorites were the ones from Yap island and Bhutan.

This piece, Till Death Do Us Part is from my photos over the years at Ka’ena Point on the west side of O’ahu. the Layan albatross nests there and raise the next generation as a lifelong mating pair. They can live 60 years and usually find their mate between 4-6 years old. The black basalt lava boulders rise up like resolute sentinels surrounded by bone white coral rubble. Monk seals lie up on the shore at the water’s edge to sun and rest, safe from predators in the deep. The coral rubble is mostly broken pieces of elkhorn coral snapped off in the winter storms and tossed up onto the shore…when you consider how far it reaches up to the yellow cornmeal sand, you have an idea of the power of the ocean at winter!

Through it all, season after season, these Layan parents find each other and lay their eggs in the sand dunes. They raise their young, together, fishing and teaching them to fly. Till Death Do Us Part has a double meaning, as do many names in Hawaiian tend to. It speaks of the Layan family but also this is the site where Hawaiians believe their loved ones depart from this world and pass into the next. As a believer in Jesus and His coming I also long for reunion yet also dread parting from loved ones. The black pohaku and the white coral together provided a symbol of stark contrast of this conflicting feeling.