Doing Something I've Wanted to Do

“I’ll get to it one day.” That’s what I say about a lot of the things I want to do, but this past weekend I took a big step towards one of those things and I’m so glad I did! Over the weekend I flew to Kona to attend a Kapa Poulu workshop at Amy Greenwell's Garden. I woke up bright and early at 4:45 am to catch my flight and then made my way to the garden. The workshop was attended by a good size group of people with lots of different personalities. The teachers were so kind, helpful, and encouraging. After a brief oli we jumped right in. We learned how to prep the ulu, harvest the ulu, and the steps for beating it into kapa. I was so excited! I beat my kapa till my arm and wrist were cramping and it was time to clean up.

As you can see from the picture my kapa didn't get very fine, but I got to take it home and hopefully I'll be able to attend another workshop soon. With everything we have going on right now I really doubted my decision to attend this workshop, but learning a traditional Hawaiian craft and finding a way to incorporate it into my artistry has been something I feel is absolutely necessary to do as a Native Hawaiian artist and I'm so grateful that I took advantage of this opportunity.