FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
Students Kelsie Kamita, left, and Littia Tuisila help artist Duane Preble paint a mural in the auditorium lobby at Kaimuki High School, the result of a Department of Education grant. Preble says too many schools have cut art programs as they emphasize reading and math.
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School unveils auditorium mural today
The project inspires a small set of students at Kaimuki High
Ninth-grader Shasta Yamada was never very interested in drawing or painting.
That was until she poked her nose into the Kaimuki High School auditorium one day and saw Duane Preble sketching out the design of a mural on the wall.
She has been his most dedicated pupil since.
Preble, former head of the University of Hawaii's art department, was commissioned to paint a 1,000-square-foot mural through a state Department of Education "Artists in the Schools" grant. He has worked on the mural of a native Hawaiian forest, on the inside wall at the entrance to the auditorium, for more than 1,000 hours since January. Its official unveiling will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. today.
Yamada has been there every day after school and sometimes on Saturdays with a handful of Preble's artist friends since April.
"One of the best things has been to see the mural every step of the way," Yamada said. "It's just amazing."
She learned how to mix colors -- "there must be over 20 different shades of green!" on the mural.
Hyejee Song, an 11th-grader who helped during spring break, said, "I learned so much about painting on walls, how not to leave brush marks, how colors change when they're dry ..."
Song said she enjoyed the way everyone got to talk about their ideas in a "very free-spirited" atmosphere in which everyone's perspective was different, and to see the ideas incorporated.
That only a few of the school's 1,300 students have been actively involved in the project is saddening to Preble. This project might give the public the mistaken impression that art in the schools is thriving, but Preble believes it is a mere Band-Aid.
"The tragic thing is, it's too little too late." By the time they have reached high school, students have had very little art education and lack basic skills, he said.
"It's like being invited to be a guest conductor, and none of the musicians has ever picked up an instrument," he said.
Students have become "the walking wounded," an outgrowth of a nationwide education system that puts "a lopsided emphasis" on reading and math, and skimps on art, music and physical education, Preble said.
Gary Oyler, a Japanese-language teacher, came up with the idea for the project a year ago as a way of beautifying the campus so the students would develop pride in it and "a sense of ownership."
He and Billie Lueder, a transition center coordinator, drew up the $4,000 grant, and drama teacher M.J. Matsushita got Preble to direct the project.
Alison Ibara-Kawabe, an art education specialist for the DOE, said the No Child Left Behind federal mandate has "strained our resources" since its inception several years ago. Schools are having a "hard time providing a balanced curriculum," to include subjects like art, music and physical education.
Her job is to integrate the visual arts into the regular curriculum to enhance the students' learning.
Ibara-Kawabe said she visits elementary schools with an Art-Mobile, a bus equipped as a traveling museum, to give students the opportunity to see that "art is important."
The mural's focal point is a waterfall of sunlight and a native Hawaiian forest, which symbolize the origin of nature. As silhouetted images progress on either side of the waterfall, Preble depicts continents and islands to represent family origins -- "we are all cousins interconnected with nature and each other," he said.
Further along are silhouettes of family, friends and life on the high school campus, and, last, students in cap and gown during graduation ceremonies -- symbolizing the beginning of a bright future. The colors follow the spectrum of the rainbow.