Aloha!

We recently attended the Schaeffer International Gallery at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center (www.mauiarts.org) to see an art show. One of the centerpieces was a larger-than-life-sized giraffe and her baby, made entirely from driftwood by artist Steve Turnbull. I was in awe as I stood craning my neck up and up.

http://www.turnbullstudios.org/steve.html

But then I got to hear a funny story about it while at a party. Apparently, the show was all set up and the docents were manning the door, when someone looked up and said, “Excuse me, but are those termites flying out of that giraffe?” Oh, this couldn’t be good. The docents went into high gear…there were other pieces of art made of wood on display. The termites might decide to move on, and those buggers work fast.
The story goes that the artist had to hire a crane to come in and take the piece down, haul it to a place where they could put it in a box and pump it full of termite poison, then haul it back to the gallery.

A similar thing happened to friends. A wood artist carved them a headboard and nightstands out of earpod, a beautiful wood similar to monkeypod. It was delivered to their house and they found that it had some type of beetle boring into it. It, too, had to be hauled and put into its own special box and pumped full of poison.

I’m telling you, there’s just never a dull moment here in Paradise.

Some days, I find myself pining for a dull moment. Or two.

A hui hou! Mahalo for reading along. If you’d like to stay in the loop, please click the “Follow” button to the right.

Aloha, Jamaica