Maui Open Studios

Weekends through February, 2018
Opening Reception February 3, UH-Maui College’s Pa‘ina Building
Visit MauiOpenStudios.com for schedule.

Poetry by Lali Groth

Take the Lower Kula Highway
out towards Kēōkea, a slow climb
through what used to be mostly pasture and farm,
views of the ocean and Lāna‘i peeling off to the right,
out through jacaranda, silky oak and eucalyptus,
past Rice Park on your left, the farm stand’s strawberry fields on your right.
Pass the telephone exchange, and you’re getting close—
quarter mile more and you’re at Poli Poli Road; take a left
and head up over the stone bridge that spans the gully
where in 2007, during a flashflood, Derego lost ten goats; Henry Lau, a truck.

At Koheo, hang a left, and watch for chickens, loose in the nasturtiums.
Across from the Chinese cemetery, pull into the drive, and you’ve arrived
at the studio of Pam Andelin—beyond the green plantation house—
a detached green shed that wafts of mineral spirits and oil paints.
Inside, Andelin recalls her artist father taking her along when painting on location:
“He took me to Chinatown, to Lani Kai, to taro fields, and abandoned coastlines.
And now, like him, I always seem to paint what is gradually disappearing:
cane houses, tin roofs, the storefront of old Kitada’s,
Shim’s horse above St. John’s, pineapple fields, Paukūkalo—
old Hawai‘i.”

If you’ve caught a chill at this altitude,
head back down the Kula Highway,
again, pass the telephone exchange and Rice Park;
at Copp Road, take a right up the hill towards Calasa’s gas station,
then a left at the top, and before you reach Morihara Store,
Worcester’s Glass Works looms on the left.
There you’ll find Sally in front of the furnace,
dipping her blowpipe, gathering glass,
transparent as water, molten like lava.
She rolls and shapes it on a sheet of steel,
this glowing saffron orb, this fragile world of heat.