
In selecting objects for this still life, with a vintage Hawaiian shirt in the background, I selected and arranged treasured antique space toys from the 1940's and 1950's and paired them with the ubiquitous hula dolls, which just started creeping in everywhere, as if they had a life of their own. I think they do.
We paint the things we love and I have tried to infuse this painting with the love I feel for the objects and with the magic of the Islands, of the pleasure of a lazy, fragrant sunny afternoon on Kauai when worries fly away and there is nothing but the beautiful present moment.
The objects are magical to me, toys relating to happier times and playing in childhood, and these particular toys, although not toys from my childhood, have always appealed to me. The toys from this era are naive, happy, exuberant in their design and profoundly colorful. Hawaii itself is evoked in this arrangement through the use of the vintage Hawaiian shirt, the happy hula girl doll and the treatment the painting is given.