CULTURE
Bishop Museum festival showcases native arts
"Mamo" is the Hawaiian month for descendent; it's also, fittingly, the acronym for Maoli Arts Month, which winds up this weekend with a Hawaiian arts market and festival on the grounds of Bishop Museum.
Hawaiian Arts Market and Festival
Part of Maoli Arts Month
Place: Bishop Museum
Time: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Admission: $3
Call: 848-4190
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The May-long celebration of native arts, crafts and culture is now in its second year, and besides the museum, other organizations involved this year are the PA'I Foundation, the Keomailanai Hanapi Foundation, Hale Naua III, the Maoli Arts Alliance and others, backed up by the Mayor's Office for Culture and the Arts.
Bishop Museum's Noelle Kahanu said the festival is modeled on the Heard Museum Indian Fair and Market in Arizona, a wildly popular Native American arts festival.
"We hope this festival becomes the hallmark event in the islands for experiencing and purchasing native Hawaiian arts," Kahanu explained in advance. "It is the best place to see the depth and vibrancy of the native Hawaiian visual arts community, and to meet and engage with these artists. ... It is both contemporary and traditional, founded on a Hawaiian aesthetic that speaks to present and future as much as the past."
Featured artists will likely include woodcarver Solomon Apio; fiber artist Maile Andrade; painters Ipo Nihipali, Joe Dowson, Kau'i Chun, Sol Enos, Lufi Luteru and Meala Bishop; feather artists Auntie Mary Lou Kekeuwa, Paulette Kahalepuna, JoAnne Kahanamoku Sterling and Audrey Wagney; stoneworkers Henry Hopfe and Kunane Wooton; and mixed-media masters Imaikalani Kalahele, Bob Freitas and Puni Kukahiko.
In addition to arts and crafts for sale, the event includes demonstrations, workshops and performances.