"HawaIIan Style Magazine" features aloha shirts

Hawaiian Style Magazine

On the Hanger
Kahala
Written by Aviva Mayers
December 27, 2007
Wearing Their Passion On Their Sleeves


"The cotton nylon board shorts, washed and tumbled to give them a soft worn look, are new. Their designs are hand painted and textured. One design, a primitive-looking bluefin tuna, was block-printed by hand, the background taken from the artist's studio cement floor. Another included a background of coconut trees, textured from a coconut husk that washed ashore. "That's different from other wild and youth-inspired board shorts that are generally computer-driven art," says Hope."

..."Emma Howard, one of the artists who works closely with Hope, does all her work for Kahala by hand. Each motif is unique, even if repeated. Howard's studio—a former carport near the beach, where she can hear the ocean and feel the wind— overlooks palm trees and plumerias, which have inspired some of her designs. "Almost everything I use is found," she says. "When I'm walking my dog on the beach I look for things."

Items that have been floating for weeks or months and return to land are used in her prints. "I found a really old broken surfboard that was hand-made," she says. "It was held together with duct tape and I dragged it home. I used an electric drill instrument to carve into the Styrofoam, and produced four block prints. I've also carved old boogie boards, vintage windsurfers. I use my surroundings like a cement wall as background texture which I paint and press paper onto it."

Sometimes she wears a jeweler's visor, which magnifies every brush stroke and allows her to lose herself in the paint. "I was painting a wave from behind and I got motion sickness," She grins. So much of herself goes into each design that sometimes she gets stage fright when she brings it to Kahala."