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DEAN SENSUI / DSENSUI@STARBULLETIN.COM Of her exhibit "Ten Apples and Other Tales," Jackie Lau says, "The apples represent what was appealing to me: my desires, my goals, my responsibilities."

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Joleen Oshiro
joshiro@starbulletin.com

WE'VE COME a long way, baby. We're in the boardrooms, the courtrooms, the operating rooms, the locker rooms, under scaffolds, atop burning buildings, leading the gubernatorial ballot. Now, how do we squeeze in the bassinet and the breast-feeding?

"It's the modern woman's curse," says artist Jackie Lau. "We were raised with the expectation of having a career and also having children. How do they both fit together?"

For Lau, the Everywoman struggle began with a love for and education in art, continued as a full-time mom and has culminated in "Ten Apples and Other Tales," an exhibition of miniature bronze sculptures at the Gallery at Ward Centre. It is Lau's first showing of a body of her work in 15 years.

"I had been giving myself to my children. That was my life. Also, my grandmother came to live with us for six years. The show is my processing of those 15 years, from that time when I was a parent, a caregiver."

RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM "Ten Apples with Umbrella, Ducks & Books" symbolizes Jackie Lau's busy life when she juggled full-time motherhood with her work as an artist.

For the weighty subject matter "Ten Apples" explores, Lau's works carry a surprisingly whimsical air. That has a lot to do with Lau's references to "Ten Apples Up on Top," the children's book by Theodore Le Sieg, in which a tiger playfully juggles and balances apple upon apple. The book was a perfect metaphor for Lau's lifestyle as she juggled full-time motherhood with her pre-baby passion for creating art.

In Lau's "Ten Apples," tiny figures in a variety of settings fantastically balance catalogs of items such as books, umbrellas, fans, chairs and cakes, and animals such as ducks and bears. And in these scenes, there are apples.

Stacks of apples.

"The apples represent what was appealing to me: my desires, my goals, my responsibilities, the things that I carried with me," Lau says.

BEFORE familial responsibilities shaped the body of her life, Lau served as art director for the Boys & Girls Club while finishing her graduate art degree.

"I originally was studying architecture," she says, "but architecture required a sculpture class, which I really liked, and I ended up changing majors."

Lau learned welding, bronze casting, carving and mold making. She figured out a way to cast paper and created lightweight, life-size sculptures of children. She participated in graduate shows and, for her thesis, produced a solo show.

RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM Lau's "Hand Off."

Then, a year out of school, she started her family. During her pregnancy, Lau started work on a large sculpture for the Hawaii Maritime Museum, which she completed when her firstborn was months old. She also worked on life-size projects for Bishop Museum during her daughters' early years. But the work kept Lau overscheduled, and her life was a struggle to manage.

"I'd ask myself why I wasn't watching TV at night like everyone else."

She was also torn about working on her art.

"I felt so guilty about leaving my children that I only took on projects when someone asked me to do them. That was the only way I felt I could justify my time away."

Yet, Lau wondered, "Am I ever going to show my own work again?"

Employing her creative drive, Lau figured out a way to continue her art pursuits while making time for her family. She recalled a project for Bishop Museum that entailed creating tiny figurines for a Kahoolawe site model. Lau had searched for a material that could be worked small enough to create the 2 1/2-inch figures and had found that Sculpy clay was easiest to work with.

"What was nice was that it was portable and it stayed put enough," Lau says.

A perfect fit for her lifestyle, Lau took Sculpy clay to her daughters' ballet and gymnastic classes and began creating her own art again.

"The stuff that I worked on at those classes ended up in 'Ten Apples.' They came during a time when life was chaotic," Lau says of the precariously perched figures balancing tall columns of apples.

TODAY, LAU'S DAUGHTERS are 14 and 11, "almost grown," and their mother is back in the work force as assistant curator and art instructor at the Academy Art Center.

RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM The joyous "Happy Hippopotami."

"Since I earn my keep as an art teacher, I think it's important to make art if I'm going to teach it," Lau says. "But part of my art is teaching, too. It takes a lot of creativity. (My students and I) are collaborating when I'm teaching."

Lau worked toward the show for about a year. During that time, she completed five new sculptures to round out the show. Not surprisingly, as her life has evolved, so has her work. The major difference in the new pieces: no apples.

"Now that the children are older, I've handed off some of the responsibility to them, let go of some of those apples," she says.

"The Happy Hippopotami" is among the new works. Apples are conspicuously absent, while mirth and simplicity carry the piece.

"Animals are metaphors for people; they're just a different embodiment," Lau says. "The hippos were my last piece in the show. They're an expression of joy. My friend told me, 'It's like they're on top of the world.' They're just like me. I'm really happy now. I can be the artist I think I am.

"The show is everything about balance -- finding the place that you're most effective. It's about that place between freedom and self-determination."

'Ten Apples and Other Tales' Sculptures by Jackie Lau When: Through Oct. 25 Where: The Gallery at Ward Centre Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays to Saturdays Call: 597-8034

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