AMY COMES HOME!
Amy Hanaiali’i Gilliom has come home; home literally to Maui, the place of her birth and home artistically to the great American songbook that she loves so much. It is said that when one does what one loves, one will be good at it. Amy, is so good, she turns that phrase into an understatement. Dressed in skin tight black spandex pants and matching shiny bolero jacket, her long straight tresses emphasizing her femininity, Amy was the picture of a professional entertainer.
Appearing on Fridays and Saturdays (except the 17th) for the rest of the month at the supper club at Stella Blues in Kihei, the 14 time Na Hoku Hanohano award-winner and 4 Grammy nominee is attacking the standards and reinterpreting them so that they become hers.
Backed by Maui’s finest rhythm section of Sal Godinez on keyboard, Marcus Johnson on Bass and Roscoe Wright on drums Amy performs virtually non-stop for 90 minutes. Peppering the infrequent pauses with humorous anecdotes, Amy is in super fine voice. She is a powerful vocalist, who has pipes bigger than a cathedral organ. However, when the number called for it, she can croon with the best of them.
She can also get down. In “Since I fell for you,” Amy makes you forget that Dinah Washington originated this song. We’ve all heard “Summertime” from Gershwin’s “Porgy & Bess, “ but I’ll bet you never heard it done as a Latin salsa tune?
“Going to a Hukilau” is a song that every tourist as well as local is familiar with, but Amy does it in Hawaiian, and she tells us, this version was authorized by her grandmother. Amy’s song stylings are confident, controlled and spell binding. The audience was so mesmerized that throughout the evening Amy had to inquire as to whether they were there. Cabaret singers are not used to rapt attention. Even greats such as Ella Fitzgerald had to suffer through the din of conversation in the places she sang. It’s rare that a singer creates a concert atmosphere in a such a setting.
Amy will be doing a live recording and that will be a very special evening. They are working to get an acoustic piano for that gig and Godinez’s breaks, which are always inventive, improvisatory and melodic, shine even brighter when they are played on a real piano. One of my favorite Godinez moments was during “Route 66.” those of you of a certain age, will recognize his clever quote from Nelson Riddle’s theme for television show of the same title with George Maharis, Martin Milner and a Corvette.
It was a thoroughly inspiring evening; like being whisked away from our little rock to the big apple, but when it was over we were still in paradise. It just doesn't get better than that.
The Stella Blues Supper Club starts with seating for dinner at 6 and the show at 7:30. Reservations are required and this is a real supper club setting. The night I was there the ladies were dressed in island cocktail dresses and I didn’t see a pair of shorts or slippers in the crowd. Call 874-3779 for reservations and go to www.StellaBlues.com for more information.
JEach year, Art Maui selects the publicity image for next year’s show. This year they have selected Joelle C. Perz’s marvelous oil and acrylic on carved wood Native Imprint.
Joelle C. Perz was in charge of hanging Art Maui 2010 and she has created an invigorating, spacious and museum quality look. “I’m an artist and it’s like having 145 palettes or pieces to work with,” said Perz.
Pat Masumoto continues to grow and change with every show. Her latest incarnation, Final Brush Stroke features exciting brushwork and a composition that appears spontaneous and improvisational.
Art Maui 2010 has very little in the way of sculpture one of the best is Kim Mosley’s Lean on Me, an arresting alabaster and kiawe wood piece that she said was inspired by a trip to Greece where she saw an ancient figure being unearthed.
Artists traditionally embrace new technology and Jay Wilson pushes the boundaries of digital art with his Bird of Paradise, a work completed on a computer and then hand colored to create a one of a kind original print proof.
Another first timer, Stephanie Farago’s Flirting Surrealists is a whimsical oil painted ceramic featuring images of Salvador Dali and Carmen Miranda. I suppose one could consider her “surreal.”
Art Maui 2010
By
Paul Janes-Brown
The thirty-second edition of Art Maui, our biggest, most prestigious and anticipated juried art show, is open at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center’s Schaefer International Gallery until April 2. Juror, Ken Bushnell, Professor of Art Emeritus at the University of Hawaii, selected 145 pieces by 125 artists from a total of 565 submitted works.
In his juror’s statement, Bushnell said that Art Maui is a celebration of Maui’s diverse and vital arts community. He wanted to identify works that go, “beyond technical mastery…” to those that “seem to speak with an authentic voice…always a difficult and imperfect enterprise.”
However difficult and imperfect this enterprise may be, Bushnell has assembled a strong two-dimensional show, which has a refreshing bent toward the abstract. Representational lovers shouldn’t be put off by that, there is plenty here for them to see and enjoy.
The State Foundation on the Culture and the Arts selected four pieces for their purchase awards; Roots by Crystal Baranyk, Black Dog by Judy Bisgard, Desert Catenary by John Shoemaker, and Pundy's Vision by Sidney Yee. While three of these artists are well-known to the Art Maui community, this is Baranyk’s first foray into the fray.
In addition to those four works, according to Art Maui chair, Chris Scharein 18 were sold at the annual pledge purchase dinner held the night before the artists’ reception and 8 more have sold since the show opened. The total for this year is about $ 67,000.
Each year, Art Maui selects the publicity image for next year’s show. This year they have selected Joelle C. Perz’s marvelous oil and acrylic on carved wood Native Imprint.
What Babe Ruth was to baseball, Tom Sewell is to art; both regularly and reliably hit home runs. Sewell has created two inspired and exceptional installations. BACH,MONKS, is a mixed media installation with video. Somehow, Sewell and his resident geniuses have figured out a way to project a video image of a face, in this case it’s the face of the actor Stacey Keach, onto a Mannequin so that it looks like Keach is here in a monk’s habit reciting Hamlet and Lear’s soliloquies. The music accompanying the work, Bach, a monk and Shakespeare meet in the water, was composed by Tan Dun and performed by the Kronos Quartet.
Sewell’s other piece is another technological marvel. He and his menehune have taken those digital photo frames and jiggered them so that they play video. This video is a tribute to Sewell’s late mentor, Dr. William “Rubak” Vitarelli. a man who lived his life to the fullest and sought to contribute to the betterment of human kind over all of his 99 years. Take the time to sit before each of the four screens and listen to all four ten minute segments. This may be the best forty minutes you will ever spend.
It Tom Sewell is the Babe Ruth of artists, then Ditmar Hoerl is Yogi Berra. Hoerl is an artist who always delights in a way one never expects. Only Hoerl could see Sunrise in Flatland by hanging three16 foot pieces of thread an inch and a half from the wall. Stand directly in front of the piece and see the parallel shadows disappear.
In this most tumultuous time, one might expect artists to comment on the war, the economy, joblessness or some other social or economic concern. Perhaps these comments, if there were any, were among the rejected works. Only one artist, the photographer Erin McNally, has chosen a controversial subject. In her photo Torture -Doesn’t Work, McNally presents an ambiguous image of a torture bed and the victims of the killing fields in Pol Pot’s Cambodia in the ‘70s. If she was trying to comment about the torture controversy in the Iraq war, this image is a strange one to do it with.
More than 10% of Art Maui 2010 is photography. Among the best of these are three newcomers. Jordan Lynn Pigott has been on Maui for all of 8 months, but her haunting image Sleepwalking taken with an old-fashioned 4x5 view camera will stay with the viewer for a long time. It is a perfect photo.
Lee Guthrie has been taking pictures most of her life, but has never shown in Art Maui. Her two black white photos of Mennonite life is like a trip in a time machine.
Jack Grace is another “newbie” to Art Maui. His stunning digital painting of a newly blossomed bird of paradise promises this won’t be his last show.
Another first timer is Ken Kennell, a true master of pointillism, one of the most difficult techniques in painting. Kennell is presenting the first of thirty-three triptych's that he says will illustrate an entire Hula Dance, Kua Loloa Kea'au I Ka Nahelehele, as adapted by Kumu Hula Kapono Kamauno, and is performed by Mahiehie Pokipala.
There is much more to talk about and see in this show, but space limitations will not allow for more discussion. Go and see for yourself. Art Maui 2010 is free and open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, as well as before and during intermission at Castle Theater shows. For more information visit www.artmaui.com.
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Photo B – Pat Masumoto continues to grow and change with every show. Her latest incarnation, Final Brush Stroke features exciting brushwork and a composition that appears spontaneous and improvisational.
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