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By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
Dennis Mathewson applies the final touches to his mural
at Wilson Elementary School. He dedicated the mural
depicting a family of dolphins to all the school's children,
including his daughter, Indigo, a second-grader.

School receives
a brush with aloha

A custom Harley artist
creates a mural for his
daughter's classmates

By Debra Barayuga
Star-Bulletin

Most everyone that stopped to admire Dennis Mathewson transforming the side of a portable classroom at Wilson Elementary into an undersea mural mistook him for the popular whaling wall artist.

"Are you Wyland?"

It must have been the baseball cap, shades and mustache, said Mathewson, a commercial artist. But unlike Wyland, he prefers working on the ground and custom paints motorcycles for a living.

Mathewson yesterday afternoon put the finishing touches on a 40-foot by 13-foot mural of a family of dolphins, the school's mascot. The mural is dedicated to his 7-year-old daughter, Indigo, who is in the second grade, and "all the Wilson (Elementary) kids."

Mathewson hopes the entire community will enjoy and appreciate the mural. Students and teachers are in for a big surprise when they return to school today, he said.

"I hope all the kids that see this will be inspired to be artists," he said.

The mural was a gift from the Mathewsons to the school. Wife Susan helped paint the backdrop and named the mural "Undersea School." Indigo helped paint the fish and parts of the reef that she could reach.

But it was Dennis who did most of the work, beginning Friday morning and toiling under the hot sun until 3 or 4 p.m. over the weekend and yesterday.

He guzzled a lot of Gatorade and slathered on lots of sunscreen but he still suffered from heat exhaustion Saturday.

While it was tiring work, painting the mural was gratifying, he said, mostly because he got to paint what he wanted. He described the process as "mixed media" -- using a combination of airbrush, spray gun and paint brushes. Mathewson said he belongs to the second generation of the "custom culture" that came out of California and Florida in the '70s.

He's probably best known for custom air brushing T-shirts at the Ala Moana and Pearlridge Woolworths and at carnivals.

When Woolworths closed and the demand for custom items burned out, he and dozens of other airbrush artists were left scrambling for work -- painting anything from wall murals to T-shirts to motorcycles. Custom-painting Harleys is what takes up most of his time now.

As owner of Cosmic Custom Airbrush in Iwilei, he and four other artists are trying to keep up with orders. They recently have been filling the demand for customized Volkswagen Beetles complete with flames, koi, butterflies or dragons for the Chinese New Year.

"It's almost like the '70s coming back," Mathewson said during a break yesterday from the midday sun.

The soothing blues and sea-greens that dominate the mural attracted many passersby to the school, which was deserted because of the Presidents Day holiday.

"It's whimsical, playful," said Kim Catalina, who brought 2-year-old Curtiss to admire Mathewson's work before heading to the playground next door.