Native Hawaiian Arts Market At Bishop Museum

Bishop Museum will be the site of both the kick-off and the culmination of the second annual Maoli Arts Month (MAMo), a month-long celebration of Native Hawaiian arts, artists, and cultural practitioners. Bishop Museum is also hosting the culminating event, a two-day Native Hawaiian Arts Market and Festival, which will feature the stellar work of dozens of native artists, on May 26 and 27 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. A reduced admission rate of $3 per person will be offered.

Museum members and children 3 and under are free.

MAMo organizers include Bishop Museum, PA'I Foundation, Keomailanai Hanapi Foundation, Hale Naua III, Maoli Arts Alliance, as well as other Native Hawaiian artists and organizations, and the City and County of Honolulu, Mayor's Office for Culture and the Arts.

According to organizer Noelle Kahanu, the Market is fashioned after the Heard Museum Indian Fair and Market, one of the most popular, successful, and longest running Native Indian arts events in America . A wide variety of quality arts and crafts created by Native Hawaiians will be available for sale in addition to Native Hawaiian performing arts and food booths featuring island favorites.

"We hope this festival becomes THE hallmark event in the islands for experiencing and purchasing Native Hawaiian arts," say Kahanu. "It is the best place to see the depth and vibrancy of the Native Hawaiian visual arts community and to meet and engage with these artists. Hawaiian art is not about a photographed hula dance-it is about featherwork, wood carving and sculpture, weaving, ceramics, stonework, painting, and works on paper. It is both contemporary and traditional, founded upon a Hawaiian esthetic that speaks to the present and future as much as the past."

Among the market artists featured last year were master woodcarver Solomon Apio; fiber artists Maile Andrade; painters Ipo Nihipali, Joe Dowson, Kau'i Chun, Sol Enos, Lufi Luteru, and Meala Bishop; feather artists Auntie Mary Lou Kekeuwa, Paulette Kahalepuna, JoAnne Kahanamoku Sterling, and Audrey Wagner; stonework artists Henry Hopfe and Kunane Wooton; and mixed media artists Imaikalani Kalahele, Bob Frietas, and Puni Kukahiko, and many, many others. Many of these same artists will participate again this year. -- www.bishopmuseum.org