By Ken Sakamoto, Star-Bulletin
Art students at Kalakaua Intermediate get behind their school's
winning entry in the Getty Education Institute for the Arts banner
contest. The design, by five Kalakaua eighth-grade students will
represent Hawaii at a national Kids Congress.

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Banner year for Kalakaua

By Kimberly Fu
Star-Bulletin

AGAINST a backdrop of royal purple sits a golden taro, its multi-colored leaves reaching toward an invisible sky, sheltered by a tight ring of petroglyph dancers.

The image is a tangible link to the culture, community and unity found in Kalihi and expressed in a banner made by five Kalakaua Intermediate School eighth graders. It is a link that won Kalakaua Intermediate School the Hawaii spot in a national art competition titled "Wave Your Banner! Exploring Community Through Art," sponsored by the Getty Education Institute for the Arts.

"We feel proud that we achieved a real big project," said Michelle Saoit, one of the banner's creators. "We were really scared to mess it up."

Art teacher Karen Miura said she was surprised by the good news. "We hadn't heard anything," she said. "I thought we had lost."

Co-creators Leilani Nicolas, Sally Sale, Russelle Anne Agustin and Thanhanna Nguyen aided in designing and producing the winning banner, which took several days to complete.

The students said they had no definite design in mind upon starting the project, nor any ideas on how to express the uniqueness of their community, the focus of the Getty competition.

"She (Miura) told us to think about peace, unity, the differences between cultures and races," Saoit said.

"We brainstormed in groups, got back together then chose the best picture," said Sale.

Thus, a piece representing family and culture (taro), a blend of existing ethnicities (multi-colored leaves), a supportive community (petroglyphs) and community pride (symbolized by the Hawaiian color for royalty, purple), was born.

"It shows the unity of different cultures and working together with different races," Saoit said. "It shows we can work together."

The 51 winning banners, one from each state, will be flown from the Getty Center in Los Angeles.

A student and adult representative from each state will form a delegation and participate in a three-day Kids Congress in art on Nov. 14-16.

The mission of the Getty Education Institute is to improve the quality and status of arts education in the nation's schools.