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| Volunteers Amy and Stephanie at the stickwork celebration. |
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| Suzanne, framed by sticks. |
Last Friday, September 23rd, marked the blessing ceremony and opening of the stickwork sculpture at the Hui No'eau Visual Arts Center on Maui. The project has come to a close, but the sculpture will be up for at least a couple of years, depending on how Mother Maui treats it. Once it starts to rot or look shoddy, Patrick or one of his apprentices will eventually take it down. In the meantime, please visit and explore the sculpture - it's a great place for photographs.
When I talked with Patrick on Friday, he carried around a pair of work gloves, the ones used on the project. Signatures were scrawled all over both gloves. I think I was the last volunteer to get to sign them.
Patrick also said that for a project of this size, at least a tractor-trailer of sticks (meaning saplings and large branches) is required. Just in case you want to make one at home. The project ran out of sticks several times and had to add extra collection days.
The celebration was well-attended. There were also some booths with community groups as well, Maui Invasive Species Committee and East Maui Watershed Partnership. The trees used in the sculpture were the invasive strawberry guava and eucalyptus, as well as some mountain ash.
Before the sculpture was opened, there was a Hawaiian blessing ceremony. At one entrance to the sculpture, a volunteer gave each person sea salt to sprinkle or use to bless the sculpture with.
I've spent the last few hours uploading more stickwork videos that I didn't get a chance to upload earlier, then creating a spreadsheet so that I can see all the videos and links, and double-check them against the ones still left on the hard drive. Wow. Talk about brain mush.
Here are a few extra clips that were not posted earlier. Also, if you volunteered, you may have been filmed by me on Day 2, Day 4, Day 6, Day 9, and Day 10, so please feel free to contact the volunteer coordinator for this project at the Hui. I will send the Hui a master list once it is finished. Oh I was also there on Day 12, but forgot my camera.