Lanikai art studio has aloha shirt yardage blowing in ocean breeze

Yesterday I drove to Honolulu to Kahala's office to pick up a brown envelope containing these 5 pieces of fabric that are shown on the clothes line here.Each one is in a different colorway of same design.

"Skills" Kahala Sportswear motifs include:

outrigger canoe
fishing beach shacks
fishing canoe paddler
surfers
canoe paddles
coconut palm trees
man climbing coconut palm tree

Many hours of carving by hand with my chisels and printed by hand .Background texture from my former Kailua concrete studio floor.

Hanging on clothes line in small ("tiny baby" to quote my 3 year old grandson, Ryder Storm) Lanikai art studio courtyard are the 5 different colorways ,blowing in ocean breeze, for this design; Navy and white,green and white,grey and white,green with brown and white, blue with navy and white.

Aloha,

Emma

Fish Nets,Fish Hooks,Malolo and Blue Fin Tuna Aloha Shirt in process

The finished shirt for sale at Kahala store at Ala Moana Shopping Center.

"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."

yellowfin tuna in printed in blue on Chocolate Ground--Kahala Sportswear

Primitive yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) were hand carved with chisels in my studio; printed in blue inks onto a textured chocolate ground taken from concrete for Kahala Sportswear.

Check out the information that the Monterey Bay Aquarium has on the yellowfin tuna:
"A 200-pound yellowfin tuna can swim steadily at 23 miles per hour."


Aloha,

Emma

Tom Ogawa,wears " Ahupua'a" , A Kahala Aloha Shirt

I was parking my car outside Hawaiian Graphics and Lighting Concepts when I saw the owner of Lighting Concepts, Tom Ogawa, wearing this current Kahala shirt .

Ahupua'a was hand designed here in my Kailua studio where the outrigger canoes with paddler ,loyal tiny dog,tiare flowers,(Tahitian Gardenias)and big leaves were hand carved . It is currently being sold at the new Kahala store on second floor in Ala Moana shopping center.

Aloha from Kailua Beach,

Emma