REPAINT, REPURPOSE, RECONSTRUCT exhibit opened at Art at Marks Garage last week on the First Friday of January and is on view through the end of February. It was a great way for me to start the year flipping through old sketchbooks and reviewing paintings, reflecting, tossing and generally rededicating myself to push myself to grow as an artist and person in the next 12 months. The painting above, Moonlight at Kailua is one of two plein air work I repainted, overlaying my feelings about the place and what I enjoy in my memories. Kailua without the crowds, a long day spent at the beach during summer break slipping into twilight and starlight. The other piece, also from the same time, was transformed into Kailua Sunrise which reflects more my future hope and expectations of how lovely it is to get there early at the crack of light spilling over from the east as the sun rises over the waters. I didn’t see many sunrises growing up, too busy sleeping in. But now, as an adult and returned to my home, I enjoy and look forward to getting up in the dark to be at my spot as the sun rises.

Sunrise at Kailua was also repainted. The original was a plein air done in the middle of a sunny day so all the values were blown out and essentially overexposed and in bright middle values. I painted this from memory and imagination, instead of driving out at the crack of dawn to be there. I find when I paint places from memory and personal experience, they take on a more dramatic tone. When I paint plein air, I am more scientist and explorer artist recording and documenting. When I paint in my wahipana process, I am painting not just for or by myself, I am in a collaborative process with the storyteller, the place itself, and myself participating in the wahipana so there are many layers of meaning and feeling attached to the filters of my understanding and appreciation for a wahipana. I’m not making up a story, I am helping tell someone else’s story in my own voice. This repainted piece is my wahipana with multiple layers of time overlaid with each layer I laid down in water and pigment.