 Aloha, Owinala, I'm Kaui Lukas, host of Hawaii is my mainland, off the grid and on the bright side of life in these islands, live streamed Fridays at 3 p.m. And then, all our shows are accessible for the foreseeable eternity on YouTube and on iTunes as a podcast. Tomorrow, April 1st is the opening of Contact 37 team, the fourth annual Jury Exhibit of Contemporary Art, exploring the notion of contact as it relates to the Hawaiian Islands, its people, and their experiences. This year's theme is Hawaii in a Thousand Years, thus 3017. In addition to the juried works, there are a few invited artists, and my guest today, Charles Velaroso, is one of them. Charles grew up on Kauai, then did his formal art training at California College of the Arts. Charles was one of the pioneers in turning downtown Honolulu into the creative heart of the city in the early 1990s, before Mark's Garage and First Fridays and High Sam. But for many years now, he has been living in the Bay Area, and I am happy to welcome him home. Hello Charles. Hello, great to be back. So you were lured here through the the art that is behind us. Tell us about about the background here. Well a couple of weeks ago, I got a call from, well a call, an email from Josh, thank him as a curator for Contact 3017, and he said that we're going to use your painting on loan from the Hawaii Tell to use as a matrix for this futuristic show depicting Hawaii as seen by visionary artists of Hawaii. It's a juried show, I'm in because I'm in. And like I said, the painting was done 35 years ago in 1982 for the 1983 Centennial Celebration for Hawaii Tell Comm, also known as Hawaii Telephone back then. And right now, when I look back on it, it looks a little dated, but it's sort of on target because I was trying to project 100 years from 1983 to 2083. And I had called the painting Hawaii in 2083, and here we are at 2017. And look at it, we've got everything that your hearts desire in the high-tech industry, except we have also the element of humanity with Kikiokaida there and the iconic seashell projecting the sounds of the sea and using your imagination to foster a lot of ideas. And that's kind of what my whole platform is about being an artist. Okay, so let's go into your history a little. Your small kid time happened to be near Lihue. Born and raised in Lihue, right across Lihue Theater. Back in the 50s, when I was born in 1950, so you know how old I am, we had camps. And basically the camps were set up to furnish workers with being in close proximity to the mills or the sugar fields that they worked in. Both my parents were immigrants from Ilocosur in the Philippines. And my dad came as one of the earlier wave, the first or second wave in 1926. I think the first wave came in 1906 from the Visayas. Fourteen men and they were probably the pioneers for you know being the cane cutters and all that. But my dad came in the 20s at age 17 and never went back. But my dad was kind of an artist. He was a musician and his dream was to become like an orchestra player. He had a band, you know, during the swing era. And he came to play on Hotel Street and the dance clubs that they had back in those days. But his day job was still working in the fields and later on in the sugar factory. So my whole background growing up until I left in 1968 was focused in that Lihue plantation camp. Well that's something we share, although I had to leave the plantation. I have a plantation in my case when it was sold to Kassel and Cook and my dad had to have a different job. But there is something absolutely magical about the sugar cane industry as it was. It gets a bad wrap and there were certainly times when it was was awful and deserved that wrap. But there was beauty in it too. They were these lovely communities and the way that people related to each other. At least my memory as a child was beautiful. But let's talk about the art. When I met you, you were really pounding the pavement around here in Honolulu. Well making Honolulu downtown Chinatown. You know this happening art place and it was sort of the well the first wave I know of maybe there was one before that tried to do that and you had the gallery on Hotel Street, 81 Hotel Street. Boom gallery. Boom gallery. And then you recreated is this that boom gallery that we're looking at here? That was a show in Alamoa Center based on the Aloha shirt that Dale Hope had put together. But I was doing Hawaiian shirts back in the early 80s even as far back as my first years at school. So when I saw the exhibit it was perfect to just have a little photo opportunity. But no it's not my gallery but it's the exhibit they had last August and Alamoa picked into a fashion industry for the Aloha shirts. And Aloha shirts. 40s and 50s yeah. Yeah you were doing the Aloha shirt paintings. I have a little study for one that has just been such a part of my life. They're gorgeous. We have a picture of I took one of my favorite paintings that has the flying fish. So it's the one where the images are flying off the shirt. Yeah well it overlaps with all the different styles and you know I was searching for my vision or voice as they say the arts. And I did explore with a lot of different techniques and so-called movements that started off in the 60s throughout the 90s until today. And with each succession of phases and you know movements that I had adhered myself to like it all overlapped and became part of this growth and evolution for what it started off doing when I first got interested in the arts back in the 50s when I was in elementary school. I knew I was going to be an artist since second grade. There was a little question about it. Why? That could be a whole. Well I had a lot of encouragement. I attended parochial school was Catholic and we were in the middle of the Cane field in Lihue. And somehow the teachers the nuns were strict in fact but they were sort of like very creative in the sense that they believed in creativity in the arts because I guess a lot of them came from Europe. My teachers who were nuns came from France and Belgium and they all spoke with these like European accents and they used to give us little renaissance what they call holy pictures. And that was my introduction to art back in those days looking at Michelangelo you know paintings from the you know the Sistine Chapel and all that. And then I got involved with like I said the growth of the things that were happening to Hawaii in the 60s right after statehood particularly surfing and the West Coast culture. And you went to school in California as well? Yeah 1968 I left for Oakland in California it was known as the California College of Arts and Crafts back in the 60s and then it changed the California College of the Arts when they started evolving more into architecture and you know writing and design. So the focus now is more on design and high tech. Back when I was in school there was a bunch of hippies and we were doing pottery and that sort of thing but I explored every facet of what was to become my future profession and I really can't put a label on what I do. I just call it multimedia I guess because I've done everything from traditional painting and drawing to video and 3D things like architectural. Yeah we have I have a smattering one of the earlier phases also was the SF MoMA cars I was just picking that up as one of the so highly stylized and was that acrylic or what was what was that? Those are watercolors. Watercolors wow. Well actually that whole style originated when I started off at the California College of Arts and Crafts. It was the post pop art era around the mid to late 60s when commercial imagery was starting to infiltrate the fine art realm of museums and that sort of thing with Andy Warhol, Lichtenstein and a lot of the New York artists. So on the west coast was this sort of like nebulous underground of other artists that were reacting to all of the abstract expressionist movements and then pop art and some New York dealers started you know calling this new movement new realism and what they did is like they were painting from photographs almost religiously what they saw and depicted it in oils or watercolors or acrylics. Okay so I saw this one that has the look it's the beach scene with the two binoculars right I was like is that a painting or a picture a photo I could I could not tell and it didn't say so what what is that? That is a photograph but I've done multiple variations of that that photograph which is my matrix again my source of information um in oil acrylic exactly the way you see it so if you put the painting side by side you can sort of see that the paintings look like paintings and the photograph looks like photographs. The reason I sort of attached myself to this particular image is that when I got there in 1968 I found out I had a cousin who was born and raised in San Francisco he was a surfer and they all hung around Ocean Beach which is called Kelly's Cove where the original playland used to be near the cliff house and we used to hang out there and you know just like any other surf crowd in our cars and stuff like that and listen to Santana and smoke weed you know there was the 60s right and down the street was like the Golden Gate Park and it was just about a year from the hippie summer of the 8th Ashbury yeah so I I sort of like landed in that universe during my first years at art school was either that or get shipped off to Vietnam and oh wise choice oh yeah I immediately um you know had to scramble to find out what my talents were and originally I wanted to be a force ranger and major in forestry and probably come back to Kauai but I ended up in our school well I'm certainly grateful that you did let's take a little break and then talk about why you're here in Honolulu now. Sure enough. My name is Calvin Griffin host of military in Hawaii which airs here on Think Tech Hawaii every Friday at 11 a.m. Please join us we'll be talking about issues concerning our military veterans community and other related issues that concern all of us. Hi I'm Nicole Alexandreinos and I was born three weeks ago congratulations on being there for me for some of the few weeks of my life I'm starting a new show The Millennial Mind every Wednesday at 2 p.m. for the month of April where we'll go over some of the reasons why millennials are some of the most anxious and frustrated people at the moment. Hey everybody it's me Ian Davidson host of a new show here at Think Tech called on the go what are you going to get during that show I can't tell you I can only tell you that it's going to be fun and it's going to be sometimes and I'm going to have a good time and I hope that you do too. There's a bunch of stuff here Think Tech this is just another one take a chance on it see how you like it thanks for watching. Welcome back to Hawaii is my mainland I'm Kauai Lucas with me here today is the artist Charles Villarosa who is a native of Kauai but has been hanging out in the Bay Area for quite a while now. He was lured back to Honolulu this time as he is one of the invited artists to the Contact 3017 show which will open tomorrow April 1st it's at the Honolulu Museum of Art School and tomorrow's opening which is from five to nine will celebrate here and now with music by Davie Schindig food trucks and Shakati as well as Ava so I love this about it bring your own drinking cup and forks they are going way sustainable or no use your hands to eat and mindfulness for the future I gotta go even if you weren't even if your piece wasn't going to be on how big is the original of this piece by the way 36 inches by 24 which scaled down to a double truck fold over for the then 1983 telephone cover they don't have telephone cover anymore well they do but they all end in the trash and because they're you're not allowed to recycle it let's not go down that road let's keep focus and let's keep focus and talking about the Honolulu Museum of Art School I remember years ago I saw an amazing show that you were part of and I'm going to butcher the name so I'll just let you say it kind of on your presence 1993 yeah it was a consortium of Filipino based artists that was an international you know like exhibit from New York to the Philippine islands and we were based in Hawaii that in 1993 there seemed to have been a paradigm shift in the Filipino culture I don't know what to spur it on but it could have been a lot of different things happening politically yeah I was gonna say post Marcus you know like Marshall Law in the 80s and then Governor Kaitana being elected and a lot of newer people from the Philippines that were professionals that moved to Hawaii that weren't agrarian based on workers they're professional nurses lawyers you know writers and artists and that sort of thing so we sort of started Kaimungi presence as an underground thing to just kind of get you know works out there but in the process we found out that a lot of other artists in LA New York were doing the same thing and somehow we just sort of you know used Hawaii as kind of this magnet and did this show in 1993 I remember it being somewhat edgy told me edgy because Manuel Ocampo is kind of like the rising you know like blue chip artist star back in the early 90s was emerging out of LA and I actually saw his work in Los Angeles you know and the temporary contemporary museum back in I think the early or late 80s and he was part of the show called Helter Skelter and I couldn't figure out if he was Mexican or Latino or Hispanic and would have asked him to go comp on his imagery there was like a lot of indie windows that had to do with the Philippine culture and a year later he started really rocking the boat in the art world he got invited to document in Germany and you know caused quite a controversy so it kind of put the artists that were Filipino heritage on the map the art world map anyway so you've expanded that that vision so somehow in in doing that it sounds like you got you worked on that part of your identity as an artist of Philippine heritage and it seems to have expended to be more specific wide exactly well you know what what are you it's about years since um that first show yeah and um I have I have a picture of that recent one in in Oakland right um that was done uh in 19 I'm spine 2015 and uh what was the name of that piece it starts with an oh thank you which is which means prayer or offerings and as I mentioned to you earlier it had to do with the Dia de los Muertos um celebration annually that the Mexican culture has um put on for centuries except this is a a Pacific Islander uh version of it I mean we have objects that are are Catholic evidently and they're ploy pounders and and kappa right well I I had mentioned to the curators who had invited me to this exhibit um that it's not quite um a specific ethnic group from you know the Philippines or Polynesia I I've been exploring the whole concept of identity for practically my entire you know career whether it was Hawaiian or Filipino or being American I mean um this is hybrid as you can get and I'm neither in fact I have a thing about the word Filipino because it has to do with colonization I mean it it was derived from King Philip colonizing the archipelago 400 years ago wow yes and people don't really realize that so Filipino itself is like being called American or Canadian or you know um European it's just this blanket um identity that they gave to the people of the archipelago say the north was Luzon and then you have the Visayas and Mindanao now all this information never got taught to us in in school books when we were growing up but thanks to the internet I just started really you know opening up the the floodgates and researching a lot since my interest in the Pacific region um sort of like you know keeping my radar as early back as like I said you know the the 60s but it sort of was the definitive moment where I could really have focus and really have clarity about what I was researching to make my art make sense because it's all abstract to begin with right well and speaking of abstract um I I now want to move us a little bit into the Kaimanahila the diamond painting um which is um geometric but abstract right um so tell us about this well diamond head I I lived in the diamond head area for practically all my life when I moved to um Oahu after high school and uh this might sound kind of like you know uh cosmic but the first place I landed was diamond head crater on New Year's Eve we claim uh I had I had roommates in California at CCAC back then that were from Aina Haina and they're all surfers a lot of people know Keone Downing he's a champion and Ronnie Cegara who was friends with like you know a lot of the people like Jared Lopez and Victor Lopez and you know they had this whole contingent of people that lived in that area and the first um New Year I spent in Aina Haina straight out of shoots from art school was um you said at the Diamond Head Crater Festival in 1973 I think I don't remember so they had this illustration of this uh barely sort of looking iconic god is coming out of the crater and I like the illustration and everything so I thought I'm going to look for this guy and I want to work with him you know so Diamond Head became sort of this very iconic um symbol for me uh in my transition to Honolulu okay but this is very geometric um I'm just wondering what that well it's it's it's an abstraction of um a cut diamond and um Diamond Head is sort of like a worldwide symbol you know but people don't understand that it's also a sacred place like it's Liahi uh the birthplace of you know like um the goddess um Kaimanahile I think her name was she was a sister of Belly there's something that goes along with that legend anyway and um being being in the surf culture I used to hang on that Kaimanahile beach and you know paddle around um Doris Dukes and the whole coast we called it Gomer's pile at the time we called you know Doris Dukes or Old Man's okay Old Man's they still call it Old Man's anyway um I was going through this phase um recently only two years ago where I was living in California and um I was always like you know feeling the Hawaii vibe constantly and I thought how can I translate my feelings for Hawaii but still make it relevant to the mainland and contemporary art so I took the diamond as an icon and I started expanding on it and I just did this thing from January 1st 2015 painting one diamond a day oh and these paintings are very tiny the largest is about eight by ten but I have 365 um diamond paints variations of it and also like variations of the water reflections those are beautiful yeah yeah so I also found some um one of the things you've mentioned a couple of shows that group shows that and their sort of movement their sort of community building um getting together with people of um with something either in common Filipino ancestry or in the in the case of the deos de los montes that it's something else but um I found so you were helping this group in um in California the Harper for Kids doing so this is another I just liked it because it's so different it's like okay well now he's doing graffiti well it was like um Harper for Kids is basically a uh mural project that a friend of mine whose wife is peanut louis a tennis champion and she's from San Francisco and they created this book called um Inchen Miles which was based on coach John Wooden from UCLA and he had this philosophy about the pyramid of success but he was a coach at the basketball coach at UCLA so anyway um the book became a roaring success so um they started using that platform to educate kids about being successful without having to be so academically uptight so we did this mural based on the 15 points of what constitutes success and all those building blocks from the base to the apex um being that being successful successful is being your personal best there's no gauge in terms of you know points from zero to 100 it's like if you're a 24 and that's your best that's it you're it okay well I want to talk about in our last 30 seconds okay nation of poi I love this nation of poi um was inspired by Barack Obama we finally got a multicultural president and I'm glad to say that I did my um years in California from the day I got there um under Obama's watch and I thought if there's a number one toy dog in the world brother oh is all about being a toy dog so I keep up with that that acronym called Pacific Ocean Islander and it shouldn't compass everybody who loves the Pacific who's part of the entire Pacific Rim and okay and this one so we're gonna end on this this is amazing I love that was a fun shot okay okay so tomorrow April 1st 5 to 9 at the Honolulu Museum of Art School people can come and see it for real right the original painting and see the real deal with what I presume the future of Hawaii will be about back to the roots yeah