Story By: Shannon Wianecki Photo By: Zach Pezzillo For one hundred years the Kaluanui estate has
been a fount of creativity. In 1917, missionary descendants Harry and Ethel
Baldwin inherited the twenty-five-acre property in Ha‘iku, Maui, and contracted
their cousin, celebrated architect C.W. Dickey, to design a home. Dickey
created a thing of beauty, a mansion with Mediterranean archways, interior
courtyards and his signature hipped roof. Elegant outbuildings included a
stable for Harry’s polo ponies and studios for Ethel’s art.
Ethel, a suffragette and tireless
philanthropist, experimented with artistic media from embroidery to
metalsmithing. She taught herself to paint, draw, mold clay and hammer silver
into beautiful vessels. When she needed expertise, she invited international
artists to stay at Kaluanui in exchange for lessons. In 1934, she founded Hui
No‘eau, a club (hui) for her clever and artistic (no‘eau) friends. That club is
still going strong as the Hui No‘eau Visual Arts Center. After renting Kaluanui
for several decades, the hui purchased the estate in 2005. The Baldwins’ living
room became an art gallery, while their bedrooms became classrooms and quarters
for visiting artists. The outbuildings house printmaking, ceramics,
metalsmithing and glassblowing studios. Ongoing classes run the gamut from
plein air painting to crafting Hawaiian kapa (bark cloth).
The vintage estate is anything but stuck in
the past. Visiting artists regularly come to share new techniques. Take
printmaker James Bailey, for instance, who invited schoolchildren to make giant
linocut prints with the help of a steamroller. Or sculptor Patrick Dougherty,
who built a fantasy dwelling out of strawberry guava branches, then left the
piece to evolve over time as it decayed on the grounds.
To celebrate the estate’s centennial, Hui
No‘eau will host a summer exhibit, a festival with interactive art stations and
a retrospective featuring longtime hui supporter and artist Judy Bisgard. When
Bisgard got involved with the visual arts center thirty-odd years ago, Maui did
not have a university like it does today. “We needed a place we could take
college-level art classes,” she says. “I’ve learned so much here. The hui has
been a great source of inspiration.” Ethel’s influence is still felt; her
silver holloware will be displayed. “It’s absolutely exquisite,” says Bisgard.
“It could hold its own with any silver anywhere.”
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