Artists of Hawaii Show

Update: The old guy died. He was 90.

Really weird day. And no, I did not win any prize money.

The gallery posted an Instagram video of the show right before I went up for story time, which caused my stomach to sink. It was full of post-modern sculptures and abstract art, with a few realist pieces added in like grudging afterthoughts and stuck in the back corner of the gallery. I didn’t stand a shot if my work wasn’t the judge’s aesthetic, but I didn’t have time to be disappointed, so I grabbed my books and went out to greet my story time kids. Halfway through, the Amplifier arrived. 

Most story times are sweet and calm, with the kids listening well and singing along between books, but it only takes one Amplifier for the entire group to start jumping and screaming and playing and running through the aisles while their parents talk loudly over the noise instead of helping. I powered through, going extra hard with the sound effects and fingerplays, and managed to get most of them through the last book and up on their feet to do the goodbye song before losing control completely. While my student worker set out the craft activity, I got back behind the circ desk to take a breath and figure out who the Amplifier was. My usual dynamic toddlers weren’t there that day. I finally narrowed it down to a pack of moms who were howling with laughter in the board book corner, and realized that one of them was a new face. She was talking animatedly with the other young mothers, then she checked out a huge stack of books, said how great story time was, and left with her toddler. The noise level dropped to a confused murmur again while people readjusted to being in the library, unable to figure out what had changed. Story time is as much for the parents as it is for the kids, so I’m really just glad she had the break she needed, made some friends, and will bring her kid back again, but WHOA these days take it out of me.

I stopped at the store after work, still coming down from story time and feeling nervous about going to the gallery reception, where my little food painting would be hanging awkwardly next to all those giant post-modern pieces. As I drove into my neighborhood, there was something happening by the tennis courts, and I slowed down. Someone had just been hit by a car. The vehicle had stopped in the road, doors open, two blonde girls who looked barely out of their teens screaming into their  phones while a crowd of people ran over and covered their mouths and cried. A man was bent over the person on the ground, holding his hand and stroking his face. The guy looked pretty dead, the hand and arm held by the onlooker was dark and shiny and wrinkled. He was an old guy. His hat was ten feet away, in the crosswalk. I moved out of the way, knowing I couldn’t help and that the hospital was only 20 seconds away, so I’d be blocking the ambulance if I stopped. As I pulled into my driveway I heard the sirens. I hope he’s alive, I hope those girls don’t have their lives ruined. It hasn’t turned up on the news. They usually report pedestrians being hit by cars, but they don’t catch all of them. And they don’t report accidents involving military personnel at all. 

We changed clothes and headed into Honolulu, passing the ambulance and police cars. The car with the young driver had moved, but the ambulance was sitting with its lights on and the police were taking notes with bystanders. 

We picked up dinner at the noodle place and drove down to Chinatown. The gallery went all out, with free valet and dessert buffet and good beer, and it was absolutely crammed with people. Most people were dressed in aloha business attire, with a few pretentious artsy outfits that were either deliberately raggedy (old artists) or comically gimmicky (young artists). My piece had a nice spot by the entrance instead of in the back corner, because one of the women hanging the show has known me since I was a teenager and was happy I had entered, but the painting was in danger of getting elbowed off the wall by all the people crowding in. I said hi to her and fought to hang on to my kids while we edged through the gallery to look at everything.

After all the awards had been handed out, we had a look at the Best in Show and then did an Irish Goodbye out a side door.

Best in Show was a ceramic chain mail “quilt”.

I wasn’t bothered by not winning anything. I was thinking about that dark, shiny, wrinkled arm. I had consumed a free beer while crammed up against a Pepper’s Ghost installation. I had quacked at high volume with 32 moshing toddlers. It was a strange, unreal day. 

Next year I’m going to stubbornly submit another piece, but this time it’s going to be big enough to make it hard for them to knock off a wall.