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CAROLE Andrade's public art sprawls across women's apparel: T-shirts and T-shirt dresses, denim jackets and vests, sweatshirts. Bold, bright and
made in HawaiiBy Cynthia Oi
Star-BulletinThe hand-painted clothing attracts the eye for sure, but there is a hint of something lying dormant beneath the bold colors and island motifs.
Andrade is one of more than 400 exhibitors who will fill Blaisdell Exhibition Hall this weekend for the Fifth Annual Made in Hawaii Festival.
This will be the first time Andrade participates in the festival and she is busy. It's enough to have to sort inventory, pack it up and ship it from the Big Island to Oahu. Adding to the bustle is that she and her companion Barbara McBeath are moving from one house in Pahala, a small town about 60 miles southeast of Hilo, to another down the road.
So chaos reigns. Towers of Rubbermaid bins crowd furniture in the living room. Boxes, some emptied, others not, jam her work studio and other rooms. In the kitchen -- where pots of boiling potatoes and peanuts pump up the general humidity of the day -- food, dishes and what not cover counters and tables. On the porch, a foot massager sits amid shoes, slippers, patio furniture and other stuff.
MADE IN HAWAII
What: Made in Hawaii Festival
Andrade, 56, is a "town girl," born in Honolulu and raised in Kakaako and Kalihi. But after "burning out" in her job as a LPN at Hawaii State Hospital, she and Barbara, who still works as a nurse, headed for the quiet life in Pahala.
At loose ends, Andrade looked around for something to do. She'd never considered pursuing art.
"You know how it is in the old days, coming from a mid-income family, you have the perception that art isn't going to feed you," she said.
But she took a chance, invested $100 in T-shirts and painted hula girls on them. Fifteen years later, she is producing clothing and wall hangings through her company, Kou Hana No'eau, selling through a Hilo gift shop and at fairs and exhibits around the island.
Self-taught, the Portuguese-Russian-Hawaiian Andrade looks to her environment to inspire her.
"I love to go holo holo, look around, see what's up," she said. "I paint what's around me. Some people say my stuff is too gaudy, but in Hawaii, you have only bright colors."
She paints red anthurium, yellow plumeria, green ulu and crimson ginger on shirts and dresses. A denim duster takes on an island style with gold and blue bird of paradise.
"The boldness reflects my personality," she said.
Andrade can complete a T-shirt in about 20 minutes to a half hour, "depending on the pattern and how I'm going along that day." A dress can take an hour or longer, especially if the pattern continues from front to back.Because each is hand painted, each is different.
"I don't make a screen and produce one like the other like the other before that."
She doesn't work when she's feeling blue.
"I really like painting, but if I'm not feeling good, I won't paint. Because someone's going to wear what I'm doing. I don't want it to have negative energy," she said seriously. Then she laughed, "Or look goofy if I mess up."
While the T-shirt sales ($20 each) are her "bread and butter," the wall hangings she also paints are more expressive of her talent.
In one, the sharp angles of hala trees cross a soft horizon of ocean and orange skies. In another, entitled "You Bring the Flowers, I Bring the Needles," a young man and woman lounge beside each other, their faces full of anticipation. "They will make a lei together," Andrade said, impish eyes glittering mischievously in explanation.
The wall hangings have found spaces across the world, one in a New York bank, another in Australia, others she's not really sure. It pleases her that somewhere -- in Bangkok or Tokyo or Brussels or Oslo -- someone who visited Hawaii is wearing one of her T-shirts.
But this is the public art, and while she doesn't label them private, her strongest works are in a simple sketchbook, the one she carries with her to shows and fairs, the one in which she records scenes and impressions, where she lets her fingers create what her mind dreams up.
In tiny strokes of pen and ink, devoid of her signature bright colors, the book holds sketches of boisterous canoe paddlers, a group of somber women standing in a line, an aggressive dog barking as diamonds and triangles fly from its mouth.
She shrugs and grins enigmatically when asked why some of these drawings find their way into her public offerings, while others stay in the book. It is as if Andrade keeps some of the best she can do just for herself alone.
Or for Barbara. Her birthday gift to the woman she calls "my best friend, my best critic and my helper" is a painting bursting with textures, colors and patterns. She calls it "Queen of Hearts."
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