Artists, from left, Paloma Marchetti, Alice Ching and
Dennis Green on the bridge in Haleiwa.
Don’t bypass
this community
celebration
Haleiwa aims to
By Burl Burlingame
draw traffic back the
streets of townStar-Bulletin
When the Joseph P. Leong Highway shunted traffic away from the storefront town of Haleiwa, turning it from a wide spot in a busy road into a fairly quiet community Main Street, merchants held their breath. Would the "bypass," as they call it, help or hamper community economics?
The jury is still out. "Catch-22," shrugs Layne Larsen, manager of Global Creations, a typical Haleiwa craft boutique. "Those who want to see us, can, without having to fear terrible traffic. But those who don't know we exist go right on by, without knowing there's a bit of good old Hawaii country living right next to the highway."
How do you convince casual visitors to seek out Haleiwa? Also, how do you promote the "concept" of Haleiwa as a community, a destination, instead of as a collection of storefronts? This was on Trace (pronounced Tracy) Hinckley's mind more than a year ago when she stood up at a community meeting and suggested that Haleiwa sponsor an arts festival.
Not only would such an event help define Haleiwa, she argued, it would provide community visibility and funding for arts in the schools. Hinckley, a singer by profession and an organizer by nature, must have been pretty persuasive. Nearly a dozen people agreed to get the ball rolling.
"They were really enthusiastic, all volunteers," said Hinckley, who chairs the event. "But it became professional very quickly. We're now members of the International Festivals and Events Association, so people can find out about it all over the world. It's also helped define 'Haleiwa' as an 'arts' community, as well as expose children to all aspects of fine arts."
The first festival occurs this weekend, featuring a juried art show of works by more than 20 artists, music (El Oso, bagpipes, Honolulu Jazz Band, Salsa Hawaii, others), storytelling ( Glen Grant and others) and children's events such as face-painting and sidewalk-chalking.
Food will also be available, but only two outside-Haleiwa vendors will be on hand. It's thought that there are more than enough restaurants in Haleiwa to handle hungry crowds.
Since the Haleiwa Sea Spree frittered itself away in the last decade (but it's back on the drawing board, said Hinckley), Haleiwa has lacked a specific community event. Haleiwa merchants were early boosters. "We need anything and everything out here," said Larsen "Any promotion at all is a good thing and helps us out. The closest things we've had lately have been little craft fairs attached to surf events, and they've actually done pretty well."
Artist Rebecca Gates was one of Hinckley's original converts -- "Such a good idea; we just joined right up and it's snowballed from there" -- and created the limited-edition festival poster. She's pretty typical of artists on Oahu's North Shore -- a member of the American Society of Portrait Artists, a teacher of life drawing in studios and schools. She receives commissions for her pastel, charcoal or oil pieces from as far away as North Carolina, yet Gates is still "a starving artist who's doing my best to not starve," she laughs.
"There are a lot of artists here on the North Shore, and a lot of galleries. The Wyland gallery, for example, started here," she explained.
"The North Shore is beautiful, the light is good and it's cheaper than Honolulu. Our problem is that all the art events and monies for them occur on the other end of the island. The State Foundation on Culture and the Arts keeps itself pretty much downtown.
"Which is too bad, because Haleiwa lends itself particularly well to an outdoor event like this."
A sampling of festival artists shows that, like the North Shore community itself, they're all different.
Dennis Green is a fine woodworker who moved to the North Shore in 1966.
The craft was pretty much a hobby, until his day job vanished when Waialua Sugar closed down. He inherited his feel for wood from his father, and studied under Hawaii craftmaster Wright Bowman.
"I was sort of forced into retirement, and now I'm working wood full time," he said. "But I'd never consider moving. I think North Shore country is the ideal place to live."
Alice G. Ching was raised on Maui and now lives in Mililani. The retired cocktail waitress uses a variety of media in her paintings, which tend to be both colorful and restful. "When I was growing up on Maui, we didn't appreciate how quiet it was," said Ching. "We just didn't think there was anything there for us. Haleiwa is very charming -- the way Hawaii used to be, Haleiwa still is."
Paloma Andrea Marchetti comes even farther, all the way from Brazil. "I first saw Haleiwa on a vacation, eight years ago, and I've been here every year since," said Marchetti, a photographer who specializes in nature and children. "The thing I like best about photography is also what I like about Haleiwa ... it captures a moment in time."
The plan is to keep the festival annual, on the third weekend in July every year. Any predictions on how well the fair will do?
"No clue!" said Gates. "It's a great idea, but it's also only the first year -- we want to start out small, and feel out our own potential. And we'll see if the bypass really affects us."
"There have always been mixed feelings about the bypass," said Hinckley. "Some businesses feel it's hurt them; others feel it helped. This festival is kind of a test to see if it's true, either way."
Haleiwa Arts Festival
When: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
