She’s an indelible artist

Anna Peach won't soon be forgotten on the Big Island

In the little town of Honokaa, a woman sewing a giant dress made of lace doilies couldn't help but attract attention.

During her five years on the Big Island, artist Anna Peach drew a wide variety of residents to her storefront studio.

"I'm straitlaced and don't have airy-fairy beliefs," said Brenda Johnson, site coordinator at Honokaa Elementary School's North Hawaii Community Learning Center, where Peach was artist-in-residence. "Others may have been waiting for the mother ship to land. It didn't matter ... she could talk to people about all sorts of things."

In fact, Peach drew so much attention, Johnson said, "she finally had to hide from people to get her work done."

For one of Peach's projects on invasive species, she hung giant African snails all over her storefront window, Johnson said. And, you couldn't miss the dress. "It was absolutely gorgeous and took on a life of its own. She brought some life to that little space in town."

Peach is originally from Chicago but visited Hawaii at age 10 after the death of both her grandparents and her father. "It was an important time in my life, when I was learning how to deal with some very complex feelings."

Years later, on a visit to the Cook Islands, an island chief bade her farewell by stating, "Learn from our big brother Hawaii." "It seemed cryptic at the time, but it was also said with such emotion and purpose that I never forgot it," she said. "Three years later, there I was, ready for my lessons."

She moved to Honokaa in 2001 and became involved in several exhibitions. She also taught at the learning center, Hawaii Preparatory Academy and Waimea Country School.

Honokaa turned out to be the perfect haven. Peach was looking for a place that had seen lots of change, and she certainly found it. "The whole area is really struggling with a new wave of overdevelopment. There is an identity crisis like so many of these post-plantation towns," she said.

She also found wisdom in the town's kupuna, and by taking a storefront studio she had the opportunity to meet them and build relationships quickly. "I worked really long hours on the project, and these former seamstresses and plantation workers appreciated my labors. They know what it is to work hard," she said.

"We couldn't get over the things that she did. We had so much fun," said Honokaa resident Evelyn Andrade. "She would collect rubbish from all over the yard and make something. She was cleaning up our mess."

Peach also created a papier-mâché horse head and walked in a community parade, and was a contestant in the Saloon Girl contest during Western Week. "She won first or second place," added Andrade.

"Everyone loved her ... even the cats loved her," she said. Andrade now cares for four of the 10 stray cats that Peach left behind.

The lace dress, Peach's first sewing project, involved stitching together doilies and lace pieces collected from around the world. "I often have to acquire new skills for each project," she said.

In Hawaii she was best known for environmental pieces, including one made of seeds that involved research into the history of plants in Hawaii and immigration.

"I wanted to work specifically with invasive and noninvasive native species," she said. "Seeds functioned as a catalyst to approach other issues of immigration and how we define belonging, as well as the spiritual presence in nature that is referred to every day in Hawaii."

While attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Peach was drawn to assemblage sculpture, ceramic hand building and neon sculpture. But these types of work don't travel easily, so she focused on two-dimensional pieces.

"It was the move to Hawaii that changed my art-making forever. That is when I broke out of canvas and panel and began to use clothing elements to develop a series of sculptures. These (lace) pieces were the first suspended works that I made, hanging them like a forest but indoors."

Peach is not the classic traveler always planning her next destination. "I never do that. I let the people I meet along the way shape my experience of the world, even if their direction takes me 10,000 miles away."

She travels with her husband -- in fact, they were married in Hawaii -- but before that she traveled solo. "I think it is important to travel alone because you have a completely different experience by yourself. You are much more approachable for conversation when you are one person."

Now living in Switzerland, Peach is working on a quiltlike piece that reflects the islands, created with camouflage material and Hawaiian shirts. It explores a desire to imitate and reconnect with nature, she said.

"I am cutting the shirts into leaf shapes and then hand-tying them to a 10-foot square of government-issue camouflage. I am using this stark military framework and letting it grow into something organic. It is also a suspended piece that feels like a forest canopy. It has made me amazingly homesick for Hawaii, so maybe I will return it there for exhibition," she said. Currently, Peach is heading off to Newfoundland, Canada, for a two-month stay for an artist residency.

When Peach takes a step back and views "Spirit House," she sees much more than a dress. "Throughout my travels I explained that the point was not to make a dress, but rather something that brought us together, to find some common thread that made a sanctuary for all from the shared arc of labor," she said.

"I see the tailor who sewed in my studio 75 years before me, the elders who clutched my hand and spoke of mana, the little girl who sang songs in Hawaiian while peeking out from inside of the dress, and the childhood friends now grown that would gather beneath the hem to tell stories of a shared life. The piece is theirs more than my own."