John Collins - Artist - Hawai'i - Water Color Paintings
John Collins is an artist on the Big Island of Hawaii. He works mostly in the medium of watercolors, with themes drawn from the historical landmarks and natural beauty of the Kona Coast where he resides. I purchased a small print of his watercolor painting, "Cliff House," in May of 2003. If I recall correctly, John is also a mechanic and at the time operated Pacific Auto Electric, a small one-man operation in the Kailua-Kona industrial park area near Costco. I had hired him to do some repair work for me (my 1987 Chevrolet Sprint ER's headlamps were malfunctioning), and was enchanted by some of the artwork on display. Recently (it's now 1/1/2010), I checked out John's Kona Seaside Gallery website, from which I have posted several additional water color images.
Cultural Criticism - January 1, 2010
John Collins, "Cliff House", 2003
Additional Images From John's Kona Seaside Gallery
"You'll find me painting on stage at Huggo's on the Rocks Sundays 11:30-3:00pm. Come by and say 'Hi.'"
"Huggo's Restaurant" - A restaurant on Ali'i Drive in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island of Hawai'i.
"Safe Harbour"
"St. Peter's Church"
"Kona Coffee Estate"
"HuliHe'e Palace" - On Ali'i Drive in Kailua-Kona.
"Mokuaikaua Church"
"Pa'u Riders"
"Dolphin Play"
"Loihi Sentinel"
"Ohana" - Hawaiian for family
Analysis
I feel contentment and peace when I look at the above images. There is a wondrous, impressionistic quality to the natural surroundings in "Cliff House," for example, that puts me in an altered state. It's like I am a child again, or like I am dreaming, or like I've just completed a few sets of sauna, cold shower, steam room, cold shower, jacuzzi, cold shower, repeated three times in succession, and then lying down in the locker room for 20 minutes feeling blissed out and abuzz. There is a sensory fullness to the images that is intoxicating and healing. The cliff house -- like the subjects of all John Collins' work -- is completely enveloped by balmy nature. I feel literal bursts of endorphins in my brain when I look at it. More than mere chemical secretions, there are currents of heightened, subtle energy that flood and caress my brain from the mere viewing of these images. "Cliff House'' 's saturated colors remind us of how we used to see the world before the limitations and negative social conditioning of our upbringing destroyed the wide-eyed wonder we used to possess. Indeed, "Cliff House" is a return to innocence, and I thank artist John Collins for the opportunity to be in that place again.
I lived in Hawaii for a number of years. I lived in Waimanalo on Oahu, at the beach. I lived adjacent to Paradise Park in upper Manoa Valley, a tropical rainforest, also on O'ahu. I know what beauty and calm can do for the spirit. I would still be living there were it not for my condition of electrical sensitivity that developed in 1994. Were it not for this illness, were it not for my need to be as far away from cellular towers and other manmade wireless energies, I would still be there, wearing boxers around the house 365 days per year, going to work as a teacher making $60K/year wearing nothing but Birkenstocks, khaki shorts, and aloha shirts. But as this condition worsened I found myself needing to relocate to a high, dry region where mountains would provide a physical barrier to distant cell towers, and where the lack of humidity and salt in the air would offer protection against corrosion to the expensive EMF-attenuating structure that I need for sleep and deeper cognitive tasks that find wireless pollution -- to say the least -- disruptive.
I have a few small criticisms of "Cliff House" that mostly deal with its lack of realism. Where's the beach access? How did they get the materials up there? What about heavy rainfall? Won't that stream flood the promontory and wash the house away? What about storm surf? Where do you park the car? How do you go shopping? There is not even a place to garden, as the mountains -- "palis" -- go straight up thousands of feet into the sky just yards from the house. You could probably make a structure like this for real. But it would be more like a rustic cabin getaway than a permanent residence. The owner would have to have the resources to repair the hut a couple of times each year after inclement weather. To me, this cliff house is more a state of mind than an actual physical location, though there are indeed places like this in the Hawaiian Islands. But a state of mind will have to do for me, exiled as I am to a comparatively barren desert landscape.
Having been back in California for a few years now, I have been reacquainted with the "mainland" 's materialism, relative to Hawaii. The people in Hawaii are poorer, but they are happier. There truly is an "aloha spirit" that is absent in California. Many people in Hawaii do live in shacks: sagging, rusting roofs; termite eaten framing; faded and peeling exterior paints. Nature is a powerful force in Hawaii, and it consumes everything. Really, the sense of human impermanence, and nature's ascendancy, is more obvious and palpable in Hawaii than anywhere else I've lived. It leads people to live more in the present, and pay more attention to living things and natural surroundings. It leads to more wisdom and humility, in my opinion. People in California are far more rude and addicted to their technological devices. The cliff house in John's painting is not unlike the rotten, rusting structures many people in Hawaii call home. Especially in the rural areas, people live on catchment water that is gathered from rainwater off their roofs. The houses' walls and roofs will often look ancient, even if the home is just 15 years old. This is what bugs, heat, and humidity will do. Expensive possessions rust or develop mold, so why buy them in the first place? Nylon shorts and rubber sandals -- if shoes are worn at all -- are the way to go. The upside to this material lack is a social warmth and relaxed pace of living that is otherwise unknown in the rest of this possession-crazed, war-addicted country.
Comments
I make a point of saying that John Collins helped me with my 1987 Chevrolet Sprint ER. It's not a trivial matter. That car got 56 miles per gallon, a 10-25% improvement in fuel efficiency over today's fashionable and eco-touted hybrids -- such as Toyota's Prius and Honda's Civic -- that cost 3x more. This is an ongoing source of irritation for me, because I've owned two of these newer hybrids (that employ rechargeable batteries and various fuel efficiency technologies) that get maybe 45 mpg at best, and typically closer to 40, with costs of operation being much much higher. There is all this talk about ecology, sustainability, and fuel efficiency. But that's all it is: TALK. The bottom line is that corporations have an incentive to sell us cars that use too much fuel and empty our pockets to maintain. Anyway, 23 years later, with the US in wars for oil (or for drugs, sex trafficking, geopolitical domination, or any combination thereof) in four different countries, where's the bloody hybrid that can match that old Chevy Sprint? I agree that it was a bit gutless with its 3-cylinder Suzuki engine. And it would have been nice to have power windows and air conditioning. But I didn't need those things. It was a highly functional and minimalist hatchback. I would have kept it longer, but Chevrolet stopped producing replacement parts for it 3 or 4 years after production, and my hounding the scrap market, at locations often several thousands of miles away, got tedious and unduly expensive. What really ended my love affair with this car was its leaking exhaust fumes into the passengers' compartment (this started around 2000), and my not being able to purchase the parts I needed to correct the matter.
Anyway, John Collin's art work is about a saturated natural beauty; and if we must have cars, then only the most fuel efficent and ecologically sound ones are consistent with that. A silent, zero emission, electric car, with all parts fully recyclable -- as well as sourced from recycled materials -- would be a good starting place.
Om namah shivaya!
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