Wahi'awa, the place I'm from is in the center of the island of O'ahu. In ancient times, it was named for the loud roaring sounds from the sea.. As in other paint projects, this one has been rolling around in my brain for some YEARS. I don't know if I've been waiting for my abilities to catch up with the picture in my mind, but I feel ready now to take this one on. As you leave the town of Wahi'awa you see miles and miles of pineapple fields--fields? I worked in nearly every field that you used to be able to see before they closed that down. Well, Mount Ka'ala is the highest point on O'ahu and she is a beautiful pregnant mountain, as maybe you can see in this sketch. Ka'ala has a face, breasts and a pregnant belly--her feet go down to the sea at Ka'ena. Maybe not coincidentally the birthing stones of Kukaniloko are located in plain view of the giant woman. Entourages would journey to this place for the royal women to give birth at the sacred stones.
When I think of Wahi'awa, my home, I envision Ka'ala, in all of her glory, and I "see" myself working in the fields at the foothills--every teen summer from the time I was 14 years old. I remember my thoughts during those summers--whoever the love interest was at the time, the Filipino, Samoan, and Japanese field workers, the smell of the pineapple plants, the signature red dirt of Wahi'awa, and the food spread out at lunchtime. I remember picking the first fruit of the morning, pounding it on the boom and eating it fresh and cold out of the field! So, this project--Ka'ala looming in the background, Kukaniloko off to the left and close to the center, and the sprawling fields with workers in the right side foreground is all about ME and ku'u one hanau--the place of my birth.
