Wedding anniversary

25 08 2025

Aloha mai kākou e studio fans!

I went to Moku o Keawe this past weekend.

Thinking he’d better use his Hawaiian Airlines frequent flyer miles, DH booked a weekend in Kailua-Kona to celebrate our wedding anniversary—41 years of marriage. DH (darling husband), refers to himself as my easel, and this weekend was a test. 

Besides having “kupuna status,” I have been living with sciatica. 

Five years ago, I had back surgery. 

Two days ago, a new shooting pain went down my right leg. It hurt to walk, and my physical balance was off. My PCP’s nurse advised me to go to the emergency room at Castle Medical Center where I could be evaluated.

Long story short, the physician at Castle MC sent me home with pills to take three times a day.

Feeling a little bit better, I told DH I could go to Kona.

Part 2

From the airport in Kona, a taxi drove us to the King Kamehameha Kona Beach Resort. Here is my “Kona Weekend” photo album.

Balcony view
Beach goers
“Kamehameha the Great, 1815” by Herb Kawainui Kane
Mokuaikaua Church across the street from Huliheʻe Palace in Kona
Lauhala
Mokuaikaua Church across the street from Huliheʻe Palace in Kona
Huliheʻe Palace interior
Huliheʻe Palace interior
Princess Ruth’s bed
Detail of Queen Kapiʻolani’s sandalwood armoire
Queen Kapiʻolani’s mirrored sandalwood armoire
Looking toward Ahuʻena Heiau across Kailua Bay from Huliheʻe Palace
Top view of a feathered kāhili at Huliheʻe Palace
See descriptions in the next photo below

DH took an hour-long talk and walking tour of the King Kamehameha Hotel grounds with the cultural guide Kaʻuhane.

Soon it was time to catch our flight to home-sweet-home on Oʻahu. I thanked my easel for allowing me to lean on him for support, making the weekend getaway so very pleasant.

Blessings always,

Rebekah


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Categories : About me, Hawaiian, Travel

Mele Kalikimaka 2024!

23 12 2024

Christmas aloha from all of us at the Studio. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. We are looking forward to holiday time with family and friends. The cookies are baked and ready to give to neighbors on the lane. There are already presents under the tree, but what will Santa Claus bring?

Earlier this month when relatives from Pennsylvania were here, we hosted a kanikapila (let’s play music) at our place with guitar, ukulele, bass, dulcimer, tambourine, and egg rattle.

I sang in the Windward Choral Society concerts and have been helping out with retail sales at our favorite store Nohea Gallery at Kahala Mall in Honolulu.

In my travels around Oahu I photographed Christmas trees. Please have a look below. As always, be well!

~Rebekah

Happy New Year, too!

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Categories : About me, Friends & Family, Hawaiian

FestPAC 2024

8 07 2024

Aloha, studio fans!

The events of FestPAC in Hawaii, the 11-day festival of Pacific Arts and Culture, are past, but its impact will be long lasting. Occurring last month in June, Kanaka Maoli in Hawaiʻi hosted the most diverse cultural gathering on the face of the planet, representing 27 Pacific Islands nations. 

The theme was “Hōʻoulu Lāhui —Regenerating Oceania” (or, “Increase and Preserve the Nation”). Another such event will not occur in Hawaiʻi for another 50 years.

I donʻt want you to think I had my head in the sand, hence this late post. My ʻohana and friends wanted to participate, but how to choose where to go? We watched the arrivals of the waʻa kaulua (double-hulled canoes) to O’ahu on television.

The next day we went down to nearby Hōkūleʻa Beach at Kualoa Regional Park where there were craft booths and music playing, as well as the canoes!



We ran into friends Kura & David Tovey there.

We went to Honolulu to the “Festival Village” at the Hawaii Convention Center. 

There I bought a souvenir flower for my hair from the Marshall Islands village. It’s woven from coconut leaf fiber. I ran into my Hawaiian language teacher Bill Keoua Nelsen, who is also a lauhala weaver. He was hosting a booth displaying woven lauhala crafts.

Bill Keoua Nelsen

My takeaway is that the Hawaiian Islands are at the top of the Pacific triangle, and that we would do well to look South of us for additional perspective to ideas West and East.

I just read that the Cook Islanders delegation arrived home at Rarotonga within the past 24 hours.

Be well.

~Rebekah


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The right frame

21 04 2024

As a fine artist, I believe in displaying pictures in good frames. Recently, my cousin Titus gave me a photograph of my mother at a Steinway piano. I already have a similar one from the same shoot of her facing the keyboard. In the one Titus gave me, she is facing the camera, and she signed it!

My mother at the Steinway

I picked out a light brown mat board and a black frame for it.

Secondly, I mounted and framed the well-known ahupuaʻa poster for yesterday’s Earth Day [ka Lā Hōnua] event at the Bishop Museum.

The frame is brown to match the land in the picture.

Ahupuaʻa land division in Hawaiʻi, from the mountains to the sea

Many thanks to Kyle, Melinda,
Letitia, and Jim at Sunshine Arts in Kahaluʻu, Oʻahu, for taking care of my framing needs.

Be well.

~ Rebekah


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Categories : About me, Fine Art, Friends & Family, Hawaiian, Memoir, Music

Nā pua = the flowers

9 03 2024

No Hawaiian language class this morning, but if there was, I would share this moʻolelo (story). Keep reading for the translation.

I koʻu holoholo wāwae i ka wahi noho kokoke mamua ae ka ʻaina kakahiaka, ua nāna au i kekahi mau pua: nā kokiʻo, ka manakō, ka pua lei aliʻi, ka niu, ka pua manu.  E nani e!

On my walk around the neighborhood this morning, I saw some flowers [pictured from top to bottom]: hibiscuses, mango, crown flower, coconut, and bird of paradise. Beautiful!

Hibiscus

E nānā kākou ana nā pua. Look for the flowers and be well.

~ Rebekah


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Red ti leaves in my garden

27 02 2024

Imagining a pretty border of reddish flowers in front of the old panax hedge in the garden, I went shopping to see what I could find. The plants I was attracted to required full sun that they wouldn’t get. Native plants would be iffy, requiring special care. The more we thought about it, my hubby and I decided to plant what we already had—red ti leaves.


Hawaiians generally prefer green leaves to the red ones because red represented “newcomer”, unlike “native”, I’m told.

But two women come every year for the red ones, and I am happy to donate.

Gwen comes only for the lāʻī, the leaves that she cleans thoroughly before they are fumigated at the State Dept. of Agriculture prior to the flight to Houston, Texas. She fashions lei for the horses in the Paniolo Parade there.

Kapua likes to cut whole stalks to decorate the stage at ʻIolani Palace for ʻOnipaʻa, an observance on January 17, the date Queen Liliʻuokalani was overthrown. How lucky that ti plants regrow their leaves readily after the stalk is cut.

So, that is what we will plant in front of the panax. Red ti!

Here is a photo by Gwendolyn Takeuchi of her lei with horse and rider representing Kauaʻi Island in the parade. Can you spot the red ti?

Fern White’s horse wears lei with red ti leaves. Feb. 2024. Houston, Texas. Lei by Gwendolyn Takeguchi.

Beautiful!

Be well.

~ Rebekah


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Palehua

5 11 2023



In choir, the Windward Choral Society, we are rehearsing “Palehua,” a mele (song) composed by Amy Hanaialiʻi Gilliom and Willie Kahaialiʻi. Yesterday we took a field trip to that place high above Makakilo on Oʻahu. It was an example of the lengths (and heights!) our director Susan McCreary Duprey will go to have the choristers absorb the music.

For most of us who live on the Windward side of the island, Palehua is a long car ride away, and because parking is tight at the cabin site, we carpooled in three shifts. In the afternoon we had perfect weather—not too hot or too cold and no rain. What a great view of the Waianaʻe Coast including Pokaʻi Bay and northward to Mount Kaʻala, too.

Many thanks to choir president Pat for driving and to ridemates Katie and Gail for keeping it lively. And, oh yes, we did sing some numbers!

 

 Keep on singing, and be well!

~Rebekah


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