In Lahaina the art galleries on Front St. are impressive curations on set and the for-tourists food hold their own, one can juxtapose the two activities together and come out with a good time on a Friday night with a friend. There was an original Dali for 4.2 mil., a waxed depiction of the death of Christ on the cross; there was a San Diego-based bronze sculptor populating an elephant with caricatures and trinkets of Hindu gods and symbols, albeit kitschy but the detailed craftsmanship was an amazing feast for the eyes, it’s like seeing a 24-carat mammalian golden universe in frozen fireworks. A sidewalk professional artist was painting the exoskeleton of an angel fish in fire orange and neon indigo while a curious young girl with her parents watching was transfixed and the artist said to her, Go with your guts when you paint. Kimo’s next door is a seafood and steak massive restaurant, two floors with ocean view, my pal and I had a decent salad to share with carrot bread, and a blue Hawaiian kombucha on the rocks .00001 proof, while dissecting the merits of Peter Lik’s photography. One particular piece by the Australian-born artist stayed with me: the Maui rainbow tree renewing its vivid stripes after the rain, a towering 8-ft tall framed-vision of spectral notes soaked in forest dew highlights, with a fifty-two hundred dollars price tag. It was impossible to have captured the big wave in that cross-sectional curl, I asked the curator, logistically it was a life or death decisive moment on the camera, but there it was like a dancing fountain in the most dangerous waver run up condition out at sea, was the artist out of his mind? The cherry pie cobbler was delivered to our table toasted around the edges and clumps and smelling great. Butter, flour and miscellaneous compote make for the perfect burning of the crust in the ramekin as the jelly is oozing, and because of this concentrated fire April on the island begins to spring, the torch on the balustrade was a song to Molokai. We looked good that night, prepared for a little glamour barring none. Gallery-hopping presented its surprises at the eyes of the beholder critically in love with a work— and the discussions that follow revealed the art even more. I found my companion in the showroom speaking with apparently the artist-in-residence and overhearing their conversation about "process" I thought diminished the value of art in its pregnant form if you have to explain it. And true enough the artist didn’t allow encumbrances to creativity having to articulate it a priori. He said, You just go for it. (Sounds familiar.) No one can explain the origin of beauty, its source cannot be embodied, I argued, history judges art because of its timelessness. It could be that to debate art is part of the glamour of a night out when art’s effects compositionally overwhelm us. And that’s what it's supposed to do: to turn you in its direction you haven’t seen before. It is only beginning to tell, but look long. It’s a rare evening to celebrate in this island gigantic concepts ensuing gigantic geniuses that made their works possible — Matisse, Durer, Picasso, Dali and emerging local talents following their footsteps — and realizing the nature of passion as cumulative in our understanding their accomplishments that are larger than life itself. And our food and wine capping the night never tasted so much better.
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