From the blackness of a
By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Manana warehouse springs the
holiday magic of
City Lights
Star-BulletinIn a rusting Manana warehouse, city elves are dusting off Shaka Santa and his friends for another Honolulu City Lights season.
The dimly lit Quonset hut has been home to Shaka Santa, his now "made-over" wife Tutu Mele and a host of gnomes, elves, deer, and toys since they left the City Hall grounds last January.
"They just sit here in the dark and wait for us to come," said chief elf Alex Ching.
And they'll stay there until they're ready to be transported to Honolulu Hale. The characters have a date with the low-boy flatbed trucks on Tuesday. Honolulu City Lights officially kicks off Dec. 5 with the lighting of the Christmas tree.
If Ching had his druthers, Santa's off-season home next year wouldn't have eaves that allow dust to settle on the figures.
When he opens up the warehouse in September, a good part of the work for Ching and his helpers is cleaning, repairing and touching up paint on the more than two dozen larger-than-life figures that sit untouched over the summer.
"It's physically draining," Ching said. "It's like being an artist and a general contractor, there's so much construction work."
The other city employees who help spend what slow work time they can -- some once or twice a week, some once a month. Up to eight colleagues are around to help at any one time. Sometimes Ching is there by himself.Most of the employees working on the displays are from the Parks and Recreation Department. Ching, for instance, is a recreational director at Salt Lake Community Park. His formal title with the City Lights program is outside display coordinator.
"It's mostly rec directors," Ching said. "We're the only people with art specialists I guess."
Each of the figures is sculpted from Styrofoam and then given a coat of cement and polymer adhesive before being hand-brushed with house-variety acrylic paint.
Mike Smith, whom Ching replaced, said Styrofoam is lighter and cheaper and relatively durable when given a cement coat.
Smith said he's been observing downtown office buildings and noticed "many now are using Styrofoam for their decorative work."Smith, recreational director at Kapiolani Park, has stayed with the City Lights project as chief sculptor. His main task this year was to recast Mrs. Santa Claus as "Tutu Mele." The Claus couple deliberately has become more localized each year.
"They're becoming more kamaaina," Smith said.
While the city barred us from showing you a picture of "Make-over Mele" pending her unveiling on television tomorrow night, she's discarded her Santa-like costume for a red, hibiscus-adorned muumuu.
The job required Smith to cut into the figure and reshape it.
The job of painting the art on the muumuu has fallen to Ching. "Somebody sculpted it with too many folds," Ching said, nodding at Smith with a playful grimace.
Tutu Mele's wedding ring has been reshaped into a Hawaiian ring, and she'll also have a matching Hawaiian bracelet with the word "Mele" inscribed on it. The jewelry is the handiwork of Dan Nakamoto, another rec specialist. Nakamoto has also been chief craftsman on a project to turn a pink-and-blue toy ukulele into an authentic ukulele for her.
A kukui nut lei, which is actually strung together with rope, was added by Rudy Valera, the Honolulu Zoo's artist.Shaka Santa, who sits 21 feet high from big toe to extended pinkie, first made his appearance in front of City Hall in 1989 along with teddy bears and candy canes. They were sculpted by local artist Kurt Nelson.
Smith, who understudied with Nelson for four years, took over sculpting duties in 1993. He sculpted Mrs. Claus in time for the 1995 celebration.
Other characters have come, gone and returned, including a snowman family, alphabet blocks and, last year, reindeer, a sleigh and elves.
City Information Director Carol Costa, who serves as project director for City Lights, said she and coordinator Ann Niino-Magaldi want to make major changes for 1999 since it will be both the 15th anniversary of City Lights and the millennium Christmas.
"What do you think about Santa in Jams?" Costa pondered aloud.
Rumors of a new and improved Honolulu City Lights next year were enough to make Ching and Smith cringe.
But like all elves, the cynicism and grumbling came good-naturedly.
Ching, 30, and Smith, 46, both say the best part is people's reactions.
"I enjoy watching the little kids because these things are just huge to them," said Smith, who takes his own child to see the lights.
"When people are looking at it, you hear nice things about it," said Ching.
