press play print

Senior Priya Singh's image of children interacting at a neighborhood park was used as the exhibition invite.

As 2nd year high school drawing, painting, printmaking, digital photo, and digital imaging teacher at Sacred Hearts Academy in Honolulu, it has been a challenge bridging the needs and desires of a Catholic High School administration with the needs of students that want to take their art beyond the classroom. 

After working towards a photo exhibition outside our school for about a year, I am proud to announce this goal is finally becoming a reality.  Our school is an all girls' private school that a wide variety of students from all over Oahu attend, and Kaimuki is the neighborhood surrounding the school that unites them.  A local restaurant up Waialae Avenue from the school features organic, locally grown, seasonal cuisine as well as cutting edge art exhibits.  For this project, I was allowed to take students off campus during photo class (much like p.e. is able to go off-campus and return before the next class) for on-site shooting exercises. Students applied their shooting assignments to the neighborhood  in order to capture the personality of Kaimuki.  At the beginning of the semester, I tell students they will learn to see the world anew through their cameras.  For this exhibition, students transformed the view locals stereotypically take of Kaimuki as they move busily through the neighborhood, avoiding potholes, construction, and graffiti to catch their bus or scramble for parking at a hole-in-the-wall niche shop of choice.  Instead of avoiding or brushing over dirty details in the name of routine, students focused on the beautiful, the ugly, and the idiosyncratic to compose a new, intriguing portrait of place.

It was my pleasure to work with a handful of outstanding students, organizations, and individuals in the Honolulu community this past year to make the following project become a reality.  For the high school students Robert Molyneux and I taught, this 11" x 23" poster project was their 1st reduction linocut.  Most of the professional printmakers at the Honolulu Printmakers (myself included) were blown away with their designs, craftsmanship, and overall print quality.  Read on for the description I sent out for promotional purposes.

Kapolei High student BreyAnna Lucero’s “Game Over” linocut poster was chosen for offset print reproduction and may be seen on The Bus throughout the month of October.

McKinley High student Cody Maemori’s linocut design, addressing the dangers of text messaging while driving, is featured on a promotional postcard with a calendar of events for the month of October.

Project Ignition, a by-teens-for-teens, advertising campaign created through fine-art, reduction printmaking, will be on exhibition at Pearl Ridge Center  (Oct. 15-24, opening 11am-1pm Oct. 18) and The State Public Library (Oct. 27 – Nov. 7) in Honolulu. The campaign aims to raise awareness to the risk factors associated with disabled and distracted driving, together, the number one killer of teens today.  At the Pearl Ridge opening, reproductions of student works will be distributed as bumper stickers and magnetic vinyl for motor vehicles.   Additionally, reproductions of one student’s poster print will be shown on The Bus throughout the month of October.  Another work will be featured on a promotional postcard listing the campaign’s calendar of events. October is Arts & Humanities Month, and the 19^th – 25^th is Drivers’ Safety Week.

 The Honolulu Printmakers teamed up with Youth Service Hawaii and McKinley & Kapolei High School art students to create this traditionally-printed advertising campaign.  Instructors Erika Johnson (yours truly) & Robert Molyneux introduced students to concepts of visual communication, advertising, and hands-on, reduction-printmaking technique.  By also reproducing these original, traditionally-made art works through more commercial modes of reproduction, the project aims to disseminate the safe-driving message throughout the public sphere and demonstrate the versatility and various modes of printmaking as it exists today.

 The project was sponsored by the Hugh Stuart Trust, The Mayor’s Office on Culture & the Arts, and State Farm Insurance, and students have been asked to be prepared to present this project at State Farm’s National Project Ignition Conference in Nashville this coming March.