MAUISCAPES

When I first came to Maui, I was intrigued with the sugar mills that dotted the landscape. The Lahaina Sugar Mill had just been closed and the plant had not been bulldozed yet. I took a hundred photos of old machinery there. I couldn’t paint on location there so these photographs became the starting point of a series that I now call Mauiscapes. There used to be five sugar-refining plants in Maui and now there is only one. This is the topic for the painting “Winds of Change.” “Legacy” focuses more on the displaced worker. “Vespers for Tank #5” focuses on the end of day reverie and sunset as metaphor for the end of an era of Hawai’i being one of the largest manufacturers of sugar cane.