Hawaii, land of the flower lei
1 05 2017Comments : Comments Off on Hawaii, land of the flower lei
Tags: Don Blanding, kou, Le Jardin Academy, Lei Day, May Day
Categories : Friends & Family, Hawaiian
Blessed are the children
16 04 2017Comments : Comments Off on Blessed are the children
Tags: children, Easter, group portrait, Kaaawa Park Lane
Categories : About me, Friends & Family
All he needs are strings
5 04 2017My darling husband Pete is building his seventh ukulele out of a cigar box. Most are concert scale; this one is a tenor. When gathering materials, he looks for cigar boxes that will accommodate the bridge of the instrument.
Polishing with Tru-Oil gun stock finish. “This one is more show than go,” he said.
Box originally contained “25 cigars hand made in Spanish Honduras.”
The lid becomes the back of the ukulele, and the front of the box is removed and replaced with Engelmann spruce wood. Sometimes he adds a pickup inside.
Decorative inlaid fingerboard came from Vietnam. Pete put in the paua mother of pearl from Aotearoa around the sound hole.
The black tuners called Pegheds are geared, a little more sophisticated than straight pegs.
All the ukulele needs now are strings!
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Tags: cigar box, make an ukulele, Pete Krape, Peter Krape, ukulele
Categories : Friends & Family, Hawaiian, Music
Master paintings of the 1800s at the Bishop Museum
2 04 2017For the final project in the Painting II class I teach, students select a painting of a master to copy using the grid system and painting section by section. The unveiling was yesterday at the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum.
Nancy Alejo chose Camille Pissarro’s “The Red Roofs,” 1877, and Bernadette Chan picked Paul Gauguin’s “Parau api (Two Women of Tahiti),” 1892.
“The Red Roofs” by Nancy Alejo after Camille Pissarro
A segment of “Parau api (Two Women of Tahiti)” by Bernadette Chan after Paul Gauguin
My students selected these works independently from each other, but in their presentation, we learned that Pissarro and Gauguin became friends in 1873 and painted together. Pissarro painted with the Impressionists. Gauguin had no formal art training, and his work is post-Impressionist, flat, hard edged and considered symbolic. Pissarro gave money to Gauguin to go to Tahiti.
While at the Bishop Museum we visited The Picture Gallery on the top floor of the entrance tower of Hawaiian Hall. My favorite paintings were the landscapes by D. Howard Hitchcock and the still lifes of fruit dear to my heart (because I have had mountain apples and breadfruit in my own garden) by Margaret Girvin Gillian.
The Picture Gallery at the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum. Fascinating old images of Hawaii may be viewed here.
If you go:
See www.bishopmuseum.org for how to get there and for ticket information. Admission is free on Pauahi’s birthday, Dec. 19.
From Waikiki you may take the No. 2 bus and ask the driver to let you off on School street at Kapalama street. Walk downhill toward the ocean to Bernice street and turn right to the entrance at 1525 Bernice Street.
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Tags: Bernadette Chan, Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Bishop Museum, Camille Pissarro, D. Howard Hitchcock, Margaret Girvin Gillian, Nancy Alejo, Paul Gauguin
Categories : About me, Fine Art, Friends & Family, Hawaiian, Travel
Pictures of me and my parents
27 03 2017Nine cousins including me met for lunch as we occasionally do, and today Millie brought an album of old photos and sweet memories. Here she is with Eileen (center) and Eileen’s daughter Marty, at right. What are they looking at that is so interesting? Why, it’s me, little Rebekah, with my dad Arthur and my mom Fo-Tsin! That watermelon sure looks good.
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Categories : About me, Friends & Family, Memoir
For the family record books: Women’s March, Jan. 21, 2017
22 01 2017
Pete, Perrin, Rebekah and Ayla gather at the Hawaii State Capitol on a rainy morning for the Women’s March in Honolulu. (Photo by Valerie J. Lam)
Mom and Dad had to work, so Papa (DH) and Popo (I) brought Perrin and Ayla with them to the Women’s March for the history-making demonstration the day after the 45th President was inaugurated. The 5-year-old was engaged. Her older sister, who reads signage well, seemed to take it all in with a guarded attitude. We marched in solidarity with millions of others who marched on Washington, D.C., and around the world.
Excerpt from the Mission Statement of the Women’s March on O‘ahu: “In the spirit of democracy and honoring the champions of human rights, dignity, and justice who have come before us, we join in solidarity to show presence in numbers too great to ignore, to elevate and advance issues that are important to women, families, children, and communities.”
January 21 is my mother’s birthday. If she were living, she would have turned 100 yesterday!
Hawaii Capitol and the State seal and motto: “Ua mau ke ea o ka ʻāina i ka pono.” The life of the land is preserved in righteousness.
Perrin, 5, put a rainbow on the flip side to match her dress.
Our Aunty Pat and Aunty Karen, life-long activists, display their adult messages in bold type. Photo bomber flashes the shaka sign.
Comments : Comments Off on For the family record books: Women’s March, Jan. 21, 2017
Tags: womensmarch, womensmarchhawaii, womensmarchoahu
Categories : About me, Friends & Family, Memoir
Rebekah’s Studio 
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