The Duke Kahanamoku Statue Commission Contest

 

Next to his upright board

Last month I went to see the movie Waterman about the great surfer and swimmer Duke Kahanamoku. At the very end of the movie is a close up of the statue my teacher made of the Duke and a small tribute caption 'Dedicated to Jan Fisher.' I thought that was wonderful touch and bought back memories of that time when the sculpture was made because I was a student then and was actually in the running to get that commission. 

Not long into only my second semester of a sculpture student under Jan Fisher, he came into class one day and announced that a commission contest to create a sculpture of the great Duke Kahanamoku was underway. The statue would be placed on the beach at Waikiki. If any art student wanted to make a maquette (small model) and submit it, they could do so and it would count as class credit.  Jan was enthusiastic about it and it sounded like a fun challenge.

My maquette for the competition

In the end only two students took up the challenge, me and Calvin Stinger a senior sculpture student. We both made a maquette and submitted it. I did my sculpture in the open student Ceramics Studio while Jan and Calvin did theirs in secret. I had a Samoan friend, my room mate, model for it and Jan paid him out of the student modeling budget. On the day before we submitted I presented my piece to the class as did Calvin. It was all fun to learn how to vy for a commission.

As far as why I sculpted my maquette the way I did, there were plenty of pictures of the Duke standing next to his board so I decided to do it like that. I saw Jan's maquette before he submitted his and he did the Duke on a wave on a board. Calvin did his maquette of the Duke arms folded next to a upright board.

A proud Art Student at Waikiki (Kuhio) Beach

The competition was widely announced but I do not know how many entries they got and from where. When we dropped off the maquettes I remember taking it into a room with a few other entries but regretfully I was not nosy enough to look over the others.

They eventually announced Jan as the winner, Calvin second and me third! They normally don't say how the running order went only the winner, but I was happy to have placed in my first commission contest. I was over the moon, wow, third and I have just begun. How long before I get my own major commission! (6+ years).

A few weeks later they made a big on site announcement about the statue on Kuhio beach and they wanted to have the placers display their work on a table for the press etc. Calvin Stinger did not bring his. That day was March third 1990, I remember that because it was my fiancee's birthday.

 My Fiancee Kelly in Studio

You would think that Jan would have been congratulated for not only winning, but that two of his students taking the other two places. But not so, the fire of jealousy and resentment soon burned hot. The committee told Jan to make the Duke stand upright next to his board with his arms out stretched. Calvin became enraged because his Marquette (as was mine) was upright and that Jan was stealing his idea. It became so bitter that Jan went to the committee and said give it to Calvin. The committee refused and said the competition was to choose a sculptor then dictate how they wanted it. If Jan steps down we will throw out all the results.

During the summer of 1990 Jan worked on the sculpture. The ceramics studio was closed to students. I spent the summer on campus and sculpted Christ Healing the Blind Man up stairs in the deserted student painting area. I only knew he was working on the statue when I saw his car parked out front. One morning when he was there I crept around the side to the open covered area of the ceramics studio where all the kilns where to see the back of his head, working on the big Duke. 

Original Duke in clay waiting to be recycled

Later he told me that Calvin Stinger came in while he was working on it, stood near the door with his face all contorted saying 'I will have your job for this!' and stormed off. He did get Jan fired. He appealed and lobbied to the administration and had him terminated. I had no idea of all this drama. I came in one day to class and, just before it started Jan told me he had been fired. We all sat in chairs for instruction and as Jan spoke to the class, tears ran down my face. After class he said to me they would let him teach out the year and that he still had a few months of teaching left.

About one year later of the competition, I was there for the dedication and Jan spoke. It was a beautiful day with a special canoe landing on the beach as the conch shell sounded. 

Jan Fisher's ashes were spread here off this beach

When I saw the end of the movie Waterman, the statue and the dedication, I said Jan Fisher! Yes I know the whole story to that, he got fired for that. Now seeing it, learning more about the Duke, the legacy the statue is to Jan, his family...I can only say Jan did good it's all over now, he had the last word and that the struggle was well worth it.

The Three Wise Men

Visitors from the East (actually west of me): Kokoro, Take and Ido 

In late November nine years ago, as we were driving home on a late afternoon, I saw three bike riders with their bikes heavy laden with saddle bags and packs moving along State Street.  As I drove I pointed to them and said to my wife, "Those guys are riding across America!" We came to stop at a red light as the bikers pulled up along side. I opened the window and shouted across, "Where are you guys coming from?" In a heavy Japanese accent, the biker (Take) shouted back, "Ancholage!" As we drove away I suggested to my wife that we invite them for dinner, they must be hungry from all that biking. So we doubled around and found them down the road at a gas station, inside buying some ice cream. I went in and introduced myself.  They could hardly speak English so I cut to the chase, "Do you want to come to my house and eat? Meat? Potato?" I gestured with my hands. At first they looked confused, then one of them spoke Japanese to the other two. Their faces lit up and they smiled, clasped their hands and bowed to me. I told them my house was one mile from here, follow my car. So they got on their bikes and the procession of bikers was soon rolling down my street, I let them park in my studio.

They liked looking around the studio and house then introduced themselves to the family: Kokoro, Take, and Ido.My kids thought it was crazy we invited people we just met, strangers, to eat. Kokoro spoke the most English, he had a blog of his travels. Their goal was to ride all the way to the bottom of Argentina. We looked at a map of the world. Kokoro had riden all over the world, his experiences posted in his blog.

  Kelly soon left for a meeting so I cooked them food. I cooked up some meat and vegetables, whatever I could find in the fridge, then set up a low table and places in the lounge and we all ate with bowls and chop sticks, Japanese style, on the floor. The food was all organic, grass fed beef. I told them we like to eat healthy. After eating, we visited more and I invited them to stay the night and sleep in the studio if they liked. They readily agreed.  They got their sleeping bags and set them up neatly next to each other on my studio wood floor.

We took two of them to my friend's house, Wade, to watch a documentary on his big TV. Kokoro stayed at the house to rest, the two we took couldn't speak much English. Wade really wanted to be a farmer, thus the gathering. We watched a show called Food Inc. We had organic home made treats his wife had made.  Our new friends sat there, watched and ate the food. I have no idea what they thought of the movie or the treats.

I know they might have wanted to visit more in the evening but I was tired, so we turned into bed not long after getting back from Wade's. The next morning we made them a big breakfast with extra food for the road. I even tried to give them money. They looked on my gesture with great appreciation, politely refused the money, but not the food.I told them my wife, kids and I had to leave early. After eating they could depart whenever they wanted. They rode past the elementary school my youngest went to, sometime around 9:30 am. She was outside playing for recess when she saw them ride by.

After they left there was a warming feeling in our house. What a chance meeting and  how lucky we were to take the opportunity to entertain strangers from another land, an experience never to be forgotten. At the time I was already working on a Christmas relief for the up coming season, The Three Wisemen. It wasn't until afterward I made the connection: the Three Wisemen from the east! Our Japanese visitors Kokoro, Take and Ido. When I look at the sculpture it reminds me of that time and the good feelings from the experience. We followed Kokoro on his blog all the way down to the bottom of Argentina. He also wrote of his encounter with us in his blog. It has pictures of my studio and what projects I was working on at the time. It's all in Japanese, but translation helps.

http://whereiskokoro.blog34.fc2.com/blog-entry-1059.html


It was also an emotional time because a week later my loyal dog and adventure companion, Sam, was hit by a car and died. I found his body at the animal shelter, dead animals room. I cried like a baby at the time but was glad those guys got to meet him. So of that time, I also think of Sam as well, the best dog I ever had.

Who Will Rescue Me

Princess Ka'iulani: Finished in clay at his studio on the Big Island

It seems so long ago now (and it is) but I can hardly forget a defining time in my life that helped me realize if I could make it through anything, well not anything, but surely a lot!  In 1999 my family and I faced a situational challenge that led to us being without any accommodation, no home, for two months.  In that time we looked for a new place, but it was not easy to find someone that would rent to a family of 4 kids with one on the way. We were set adrift. It was a very emotional and depressing time for me. 

As I write, an old haunting tune comes to mind: Who will Rescue Me from the movie, The Rescuers. Maybe it's because I was watching it a lot with the kids. Little did I know at that time, I would not be rescued but would be called on to do some rescuing of my own.

Ka'iulani Emergency

My studio: HQ for the Emergency casting
of Jan's sculpture

In the midst of our challenge, my old teacher and friend Jan Fisher (1938 to 2016) comes to me from Hawaii and asks for me to help in the challenging task of casting and finishing a monumental sculpture of Princess Ka'iulani for Waikiki.  A major unveiling ceremony already set, the sculpture had to be finished and set on it's way in a shipping container to Hawaii within a very short time. 

I agreed to the task of getting it done. Because of his urgency, I suspended our search for a new place and placed ourselves at the kindness and mercy of our friends, the ones that would let us sleep at their place. We only slept there, never hung there during the day. As we did this I set a rule to ensure we not overstay our welcome: not more than three nights at any one place. This set in motion my family as gypsies going from place to place, sometimes a hotel (if we had money), or whoever of our friends would take a chance on us.

I still retained my warehouse studio. We had jammed all our worldly possessions in it up against the walls and on shelves but left the middle open to work and put together Jan's sculpture. 

The sculpture pieces came shipped in a crate in molded sections that would go through a process of wax pour, ceramic investment, bronze casting and finally being welded together and finished for shipping. So easy to say, immensely hard to do in a short time in a studio not really set up for this task.  But Jan was low on cash and the foundries normally took much longer, charged extra for a rush job, plus you had to book your order in advance (which Jan had not done) so they would be on the same page. His only option was to call on his friend and former student to help him put it together.

In creating this sculpture, the urgency, long hours and challenges we faced cannot all be written (although I would like to). With the situation my family was in and the predicaments Jan and I found ourselves in, it was quite the roller coaster life. There were many experiences that stood out but I will only touch on a few.

We Thought We Were So Smart

After a few days and much labor, the panels were cast and we got them back to the studio and began the task of welding them all together. We were quite inexperienced but felt we were up to the task. As we put the panels together we didn't take into account the warpage from molding and casting the pieces in wax. This warpage came into evidence when we got the sculpture half way up and it was way off and the pieces started not matching up and looked nothing like the original. When we looked at how it lined up and the huge problem we faced, we were dumfounded. We sat on my couch (covered in plastic) and stared at the thing we were building then looked at each other in bewilderment. Jan started to lament: "We thought we were so smart, we thought we could do what the foundries could do!" It was a scene faced by many an artist, old and young, the realization that we had bitten off more than we could chew!

"Why don't we bring someone in, like a foundry worker, to help and advise us?" Jan seriously mused that one but never agreed. After about half an hour of stopping work he got up from the couch and paced around looking up every now and then at our bronze dilemma.  Then he declared, "we can do it!" And he picked up the sledge hammer and started pounding the panels.  I groaned inside, here we go. It sounded very positive, Jan's declaration, but I knew what he really meant; we have no alternative, there's no turning back, we have to do it! I got up and started helping and as we saw the panels slowly move and do what we wanted them to do, we took courage, the doubts forgotten, progress was made and our work continued.


What Are You Guys Doing?

Richard works up the final Patina in my studio.  All our worldly
possessions in boxes on the shelves.

As the project progressed, we had finally got all the panels together and I saw for the first time what the completed project of this female figure would look like. There was still much banging and welding to be done. Tipped on it's side, we didn't realize that the cone shape of the dress formed a funnel that projected the sound well beyond our work space. One night at 2 am as we were working we were surprised to hear a knock at the glass office door.  There stood the bewildered, half drowsy figure of a residential neighbor from across the street.

"What are you guys doing?"

"Oh can you hear us? So sorry."

We stopped work.  But we could not stop now, we must keep working but the sound was too much.  What to do? We move all the bedding, shelves, boxes, matrices, everything in the studio over to the roller door to block the sound.  Then pointed the cone sculpture away from the door.  Once completed, we made a test.  I crawled in the darkness over to the guys house and sat under his bedroom window while Jan wailed on the sculpture. I snuck back and told Jan the good news, from over there I could hardly hear anything.  On into the night we continued our pounding and welding.

Where is my family?

My cute kids not long before we were to head into the gypsy life.
In the background is the trusty white suburban we drove around in.

While this was going on, my family was off in our old suburban, my wife 6 months pregnant. I wanted to be with them, to know they were alright, but had to spend my time at the studio. I would come to them late in the evening, sleep and leave early. We slept on floors, couches, in a loaner cabin, hotels, even at the studio on the cement floor.  We never slept in the car.

During the day the kids would come around for a visit.  My young son once came up to me and said Dad, are you a hard worker? It was so cute.  My wife said yes dad is a hard worker.

Only once was I tempted to break our three day stay rule.  We were staying with a family, the sculpture was almost finished and would be shipped that day. It would be so nice if we could stay one more night, then when it was over we could move somewhere else.  To make the people feel better about having us one day longer I told Kelly to buy them a bunch of groceries. Unfortunately this didn't help.  When the lady came home and found my family still there, she became annoyed with my wife and said, when are you leaving? But she said it in a tone that really meant, please leave now. Not a welcoming place anymore, Kelly grabbed the kids, all our stuff (minus the groceries) and left right away.

Without a place, my family came over to the studio to watch the final dramatic scenes of the completion, loading, crating and departure of the sculpture, Jan, and everyone else.

Finished and Shipped

Princess Kailoni half way through Patina.  In her right hand she feeds the
peacock 'wafers' with portraits of the instigators, the traitors
that led to the Hawaiian annexation.

It was a Saturday.  A month had passed. The sculpture had to be crated and delivered to the wharf in Los Angeles on Monday (two days) to make the ship departure and arrive in time for the unveiling in Honolulu. The sculpture was being finished but the crate still wasn't made, even though Jan's friend had been given the task days ago.  It was such a simple thing, to make a crate, but for some reason the guy had a mental block. With only hours left I took over that task of the crate as well.

Everything to me has a song or a tune.  Thinking back on this one everything was coming to a crescendo. What better way of describing this time than the last part of Marche Slave by Tchaikovsky.


The semi with it's huge trailer came, which was a miracle in itself (long story). As the truck rolled in the Tongans I was with clapped their hands for joy.  It wasn't supposed to be there but here it was backing up. The sculpture was very big, heavy and awkward shaped.  No forklifts around to load it so we got 8 Tongans to lift it up onto the truck.  Once the sculpture was in place I set about building the crate around the sculpture on the back of the trailer. The truck driver was forestalled by Jan giving him $50 and asking to come back in an hour.  He unhitched the trailer and left with his rig. In the midst of still building the crate,  the truck driver and rig came back and started hitch back up again. As he hitched his rig to the trailer the banging and shaking of the coupling echoed through the trailer making my task even more urgent. I became so focused and pumped, perhaps running on a last bit of adrenaline. I would pound down the nails with great gusto, three or four swift,  precise strokes and they were in.  One after the other, pounding and pounding.  Finally Jan said, enough! Stop! I hopped down, that was it, it's over!

The truck pulled away and so did everyone else, even Jan had to rush off to the airport. Within a few short minutes the parking lot was empty of people.  The only ones remaining were my wife and my little ones. My feelings, our situation, were so overwhelming. tears came to my eyes, I could hardly see.  I sank to the ground and sobbed there while my sweet little ones gather round to 'soft' me on my back.  The sunlight felt harsh. I felt hollow. I realized I was sore and tired. We went to find a hotel. 

A Loyal Friend and Ideal Helper

Looking back it was a very difficult situation, a bit traumatizing, but one I was glad I made it through, task completed.  It was a good thing that I helped my friend and teacher. Funny thing too he ran out of money so other than an initial payment to bring me on board, I was never fully paid.

Of me, the way I worked and how I helped him, Jan would say, "LeRoy you helped me and worked so hard on my sculpture like it was your own. Your urgency and care, you helped me more than I could say. No foundry would ever do what you did. I will always be grateful to you, even after I die. I will always be in your debt. I will make whatever you want." 

That's okay Jan, no worries brah, you helped me a lot too, more than I can ever say. After the Princess Kai'ulani experience, I figured this now makes us even. 

In 2014, 15 years later, My wife and I  finally got to see the
sculpture in it's setting of downtown Waikiki, Hawaii.

Jan Fisher and the Ceramics Studio: A little bit of Heaven

There were three things you had to do to get an A grade for the ten week semester sculpture class with Jan Fisher.  They were: do three sculptures, do not miss more than three classes, and do 20 hours after class work in the ceramics studio.  “Everyone can get an A", Jan would say, "I don’t believe in the bell curve.  Whoever invented the bell curve should be shot!” He would say that every semester, first day of class:  “whoever invented the bell curve should be shot!” I imagined some person, the inventor of the bell curve, drawing a bell on the board and saying I’ve got it! Then the crack of a gun.

This was the academic Jan talking, or as academic as he got. In reality it was just a set of measured things to be ticked off a list so all the paper work looked good.  Nothing to do with real art. One could do all that, those three things and get a good grade.  But I realized early on that to make it as a real artist, doing those things will not prepare you in the least.  What you really had to do was so much more than that. The nice thing though if you did just do those things and worry only about the grade, you could finish the semester, pat yourself on the back and forget about it.  What Jan actually taught in his actions and what he said off the record was so much more.  He wanted us to work so hard, give our souls, make something of our lives and generate a wave that would go around the world and reach up into heaven. The simple requirements for a grade stopped at the end of the semester, what he really wanted from us lasted much longer, carried on much further and haunts me even to this day.

Coming to Hawaii

The Royal Hawaiian Family King Kamehameha 

and co. Jan was excited, he had big plans for 

some park with all the royal family.  But later 

when I started taking classes the sculptures 

were gone and he never spoke of the 

project again.

I first came to Hawaii in 1989 to attend Brigham Young University on the beautiful north shore of Oahu in a small town called Laie. Hawaii is such a wonderful place to go to school, the agreeable climate, beautiful smells, sites and wonderful people everywhere. I truly had a sense of awakening, that something was going to happen and was happening at this moment. I had sense of coming alive. This was before I ever stepped into the Ceramics Studio. When I entered the Ceramics Studio, it was hard to take in the place in all at once because it was filled with so many sculptures.  Amazing pieces. Way better than anything I had ever done.  When entering the Ceramics Studio you walk right into an open area where all the sculpting takes place.  As I walked through the door I first saw a group of figures Jan Fisher was working on, a group of King Kamehameha and his family. They were half-sized figures, grouped together with the man himself, King Kamehameha, at the front. For a budding artist to see such works in the making, it was awesome. Jan had his back to me and was working on the piece.  He craned his neck around as we entered and I was introduced as a new arrival from New Zealand that wants to be a sculpture student.  Jan was very nice and gave me a brief tour of the studio.  He showed me some pieces he had been working on and told me what various projects students did there. I think I must have peaked his interest as there was a long line over the years of top art students from New Zealand.

My First sculpture in Hawaii: 
Christ in America

For me Jan didn’t generate a desire to create, I already had that, but he did fuel it to much greater heights.  I wanted to create something that would impress, that would be so beautiful--something to add to all the great works I saw in there.  My first project shows that, a small relief I did of Christ in America.  Jan helped me on this, especially the Christ figure.  When I look at it I think of the help he gave me on my first piece. I left the strokes he put on it. It was a good start and was helpful in showing Jan I meant to put forth a good effort and worth the time to teach.

The Masters

Jan wanted us to do great things and so he keyed off and often talked of the great masters.  He showed pictures like Michelangelo’s David, or Rodin’s Thinker.  He told stories and pretended to act out scenes from their lives.

"Michelangelo would come out of his studio,  he’d be all white, covered in marble dust.”  Jan would be standing a little hunched over.  "He’s walking down a narrow street of Florence, totally exhausted." Then Jan would shuffle across the floor, head hanging down. “Some people would be coming up in the opposite direction and there would not be enough room to easily pass by. As they got near Michelangelo he’d say out GET OUTA MY WAY!”  Jan would thunder his voice and swing his arms up. 

“Rodin would be in his studio, trying to decide on a good pose.  His models would walk around his studio completely nude. Rodin would wait and look” Jan would pace around the room imitating a pensive Rodin, his hands in his pockets jiggling his keys. "Then a model would do something, sit down or turn to get something and Rodin would say STOP!” Jan would freeze as he stood, hips sticking forward. “And that’s how Rodin would get his poses!"

For us it was like listening to a preacher in some high roller church. He was very funny too. To other more casual students it was not so enjoyable.  After one such class I was walking across campus with a fellow art student, fully inspired, pumped up from the talk and I asked, what did you think of what he said?  She replied "that was a total waste of time.”  I was dumbfounded. She said she wanted to sculpt but he just kept talking and talking. "We had no time to do anything." I said yes I can see what you mean, I think he had something he wanted to tell us, to know and we are supposed to come in after hours and work on our own stuff.  That was how it worked.

Teaching

Jan’s practical teaching, hands on correcting every student’s problems, had waned by the time I got there.  He was through with babying people through their works and ending up with a bunch of Fisher clones.  He gave advice and talked more, letting the students discover for themselves.  At key moments he did step in and help steer people back in a better direction.  Perhaps this also had to do with the large commission work he was getting which limited his time teaching but since he did all his own work at the Ceramics Studio, it was immensely helpful to see how a working artist got commissions and created pieces for clients.

After two semesters of sculpting I put forth my best effort and created Christ
Healing the Blind Man. Jan was amazed with my progress. I did it all by myself
in the summer with no advice from him. He was proud of what I did and showed
it to other art professors.

Jan always wore nice cloths. Black pants and a nice aloha shirt.  He would pace up and down as he taught. He would sometimes demonstrate, along with a running commentary on what he was doing: "Don’t tickle the clay!  I should have a speaker at the corner of the studio and anytime anyone touches the clay too much the speaker would go hehehehaha" and he would jump around like a monkey as he was making the tickling sound.  

If Jan just got off the phone with some good news like someone wanted to commission him, then he would get really happy. This is when he started talking of bigger things, of creating sculpture the whole world would stand up and take notice of--great sculptures that he and his students would create to glorify God and his kingdom, sculptures for Church buildings and temples, especially the temple at the new Jerusalem and the old Jerusalem. He wanted to make the 12 doors for the twelve tribes of Israel. He could almost taste it.

Happy day for me, a fulfillment of my professor’s wish that his students create
works for temples: the frieze above the Newport Beach Temple doors

Money!

Jan actually did well for himself when I was there, he had many commissions and pieces he sold.  In spite of this he talked to us of money and art. The big discussion for art students was always selling sculptures, getting commissions, and how to do it without, as Jan would say, ‘prostituting’ your ideals in the name of the all mighty dollar. "Money! Money! Jan would say in a deep cynical voice.  His favorite anti-establishment song was Money by Pink Floyd.

As we got out of the temple, Jan
pulls out a $50 note and says, "make
sure you rent a Lincoln Continental,
it’s a smooth ride."

This was in deep contrast to what he actually thought of money, he loved it.  Well maybe not love but it was a great weakness for him and whenever he had it, it burnt a hole in his pocket.  Whenever he would get a good sized commission he had a hard time not being too giddy and spending up large. He was very generous at these times.  He once said that if a beautiful naked lady walked through the door it would not be a huge temptation, but if someone walked in with loads of cash to tempt him, that would be a trial. I can hardly fault him as he was very generous to me and insisted on paying for a honeymoon to Maui for my new bride and I, and I did work for him to buy a very nice ring as well.

What stuck with me was this advice: Create for people who really understand what good art is, not the masses, ‘sculpt for other sculptors.’  It has been good advice but he forgot to say that you will feel good about what you do, receive praise from people who know good art, but most appreciating sculptors have no money, so you’ll hardly get a sale from it!

Fellow Jew and Brown People

Jan already liked me because I was from New Zealand. Of his own personal heritage Jan said he had Jewish blood. Jan thought from my looks and my eastern European heritage that I had Jewish in me too. He called me his fellow Jew. When he told me that I was Jewish too I said really?  He said yes.  I said well all right then. I have never been able to find out for sure if I was Jewish.  From his sisters, I'm not sure if he was Jewish either. His sisters once said to me that "Jan was the only Jew in our family." Jan stuck with this thread. He would ask the question, "who are the best today in every field of art, music or science? Jews, just like you and me". I had no idea what I was, my family history is murky, but if that meant he would take special interest in me and teach me, I would be Jewish. I was his fellow Jew.

A Samoan feast: Jan loved
culture and native peoples

Race was a huge part of it all for Jan.  Many of his sculptures were of Polynesians and their legends. He loved the Polynesians having lived in Samoa and Hawaii for over 25 years. He befriended Polynesians that understood him and adopted him as their own. His arms were tanned from the Hawaiian sun so looking at his own arms, after a while, he thought of himself as Polynesian too.  He would say the biggest shock for him would be each morning when he would look at his face in the mirror and see a white made staring back. Other times his realization of being white was not so subtle.  He related to me one experience when he was walking in Laie shopping center, when the hairs on his neck stood up, his senses became alarmed and a voice said watch out!  He pivoted his head in time to have his cheek grazed by the fist of some big polynesian. With the big Polynesian now off balance, Jan took off running to save himself. Those times for sure he knew he was a Haole (white person). He would say he understood why they (Hawaiians) hated white people after taking away their lands and their dignity.

Other Interesting Stories: Kama Pua'a Pays a Visit

Jan told some amazing stories but none were more amazing than the story he once told us when he was in the middle of creating works for the Grand Wailea hotel.

The Hawaiians have a legend of a pig man, like the native American's wolfman, who could change his appearance from a man to a raging pig.  Jan did a sculpture of the Kama Pu’aa (pig man) for the hotel on Maui. He started off with a maquette for approval.  He had the maquette at his home in Kaaawa.  One time during the day when the house was empty, he went upstairs to take a nap.  While half asleep he heard the sliding door open and a strange sound like cloven feet smacking the linoleum floor.  It could be heard moving around in the kitchen then onto the carpet and the distinct sound of it coming up the stairs.   Ka clop ka clop. Jan said, "oh no it’s coming up here!"  He covered his face with the blanket and refused to see what had just flung open the door to his bedroom and was hoping around his bed. Ka clop ka clop ka clop! Cowering, he said to himself "I’m not looking! I’m not looking!" Eventually the visitor went down the stairs and left.  He later asked a Hawaiian friend what that meant.  He said the Kama Pua’a was coming to see the sculpture you did of him and... he liked it.

A scaled up version of the pig man,
Kama Pua’a approved

The Duke

Third place? Wow not bad!

It is well known now that Jan created the famous statue of Duke Kahanamoku.  I was there at the beginning. One day he came into class (my second from him) and said they want a new statue of the Duke in Waikiki, anyone who wants to put in for it can count it as a class project.  Oh wow!  I wanted to try for it.  There were many art students. The only other student that tried was a senior student, he did a very nice piece. Jan also entered. Jan kept his sculpture a secret from us but helped me with mine, offering small advices. I had my Samoan friend Jerry Amua model for me.  Jan used the art model budget to pay for Jerry’s time. There were a few entires from all over the Western United States. After the judging Jan was announced the winner. Not normal in most commission competitions, but the judges decided to say which other pieces they liked and my piece was judged third best!  I was over the moon.  Imagine, I thought, I came third and I have hardly begun.  When will I have my own commission!!! Little did I know that it would be a hard slog and a few years down the road before it actually happened.

Don’t Change a Note!

A dainty figure of Hina and the Mo’o. Jan would say it
was a Polynesian version of Eve and the serpent.

Sometimes Jan would have me help on real commission projects. On one occasion a larger than life sculpture he was working on Hina and the Mo’o had a big crack developing in the lizard’s tail. Jan had to leave for the evening so he left it to Don Smiler (a past sculpture student) and me to fix it.  Our first approach was to drive spikes into the clay near the crack and repair the break. But as we drove spikes in the crack became bigger until a very big chunk fell off! I said lets do this right and lay in a better support structure with rods and pack in fresh soft clay.  If we try and stick the fallen piece back in, it will just fall out again.  So Don and I went to work and to make sure it was packed good. I had Don slap and pack the clay in with the side of a hammer.  As we got it back to where it was I said... hey stop!  Look at that!  Don stepped back and I said look it looks way better with that texture and the hammer marks in there it looks really good, like the tail is about to move. We were so proud of our work.  I thought it looked better, much better. Jan came in the next day and...it was like how parents feel when their toddler smears peanut butter all over the furniture, he hit the roof!  Me and Don were in trouble, but Don had got there before me and took the brunt so by the time I got there Jan was just mumbling to himself, fixing our mess and quoting from the movie Amadeus, "too many notes?...which ones should I change your majesty?..too many notes?!"




Jan Gets Let Go

The story of Jan’s termination after having him for a teacher for only two years is too long for me to cover in this post. I will say there was a lot of jealousy and dissatisfaction with Jan by both students and other teachers.  I was pretty much oblivious to all the drama, I was too busy being an art student.  One day, just before class, I came into to hear Jan say he was being fired.  It happened just before class so I sat down with the other students. I sat there upright with tears streaming down my face. After class Jan came to me and said it’s okay, it’s not right away, there’s still a little time to teach you before I go. And so it went.  It was a good time, not long enough, but I learnt enough from Jan to last me through those years-the years I had left at school, under new management.  It actually carried me even further than that, it took me about 8 years to figure out what Jan said and all he taught, how it all fitted together.  Once it did sink in, those years later, a light went on in my head and I now understood. With this understanding, with this gift, I felt like I was ready. I now had the confidence to take on the whole world.

My Teacher Jan Fisher’s Beginnings and the Making of the Program at BYU Hawaii

Jan Fisher came to BYU-Hawaii in
1970 to take over the 3D program
and built it to become like no other.

"No man is an island, but it can be a good place to learn to sculpt!"

LeRoy Transfield

In the still hours of the Hawaiian night when the campus was winding down, the ceramics studio was still a hopping place and Jan Fisher was just warming up into his work and his story telling. The sculpture students, a captive audience, could while away the late hour working and listening to fantastic stories, learning about the life and times of our teacher.  He would lean back, thoughtful, then dart in to add clay here or there to his latest big creation. Always in love with whatever he was working on.  On each piece he would say, it is my best piece ever... ever! In tandem with this was constant speaking, talking (“pontificating”, he would say) on one subject after another.  In story telling, when he wanted to emphasize a bit of the narrative he would stop sculpting, turn his head, raise his eyebrows, open his eyes wide, blurt out the punch line and then bust out laughing with a slap of his thigh. Ah ha ha ha! The more interested you seemed, the more encouraged he was to tell the next fantastic story. You need not speak only nod, agree and laugh too. He told many stories about family life growing up, the good and bad times and all the drama. Ever the artist, many of the students agreed that he should have been an actor.

These stories I’ve pieced together. For this account I’m going to keep to his art career and the interesting journey he had at Brigham Young University-Hawaii, pre 1989. In other words this is all the stuff he did, art wise, before I came to BYUH. These stories and accounts are what I heard, understood and remember. They may be tainted by embellishments or misunderstandings in what he said.  I do have a good memory and those times were so epic in my life, how could one forget them. He also repeated a few of his stories saying them in pretty much the same way and details each time. This account I give is also very brief compared to all the stories, the amazing stories, that he told of things. As I write and form this account, many things come back to me, more than I can ever say.  But as I have said, this is a brief description of his art endeavors, challenges and building the program at BYU-Hawaii that I and many other art students benefitted from.

Jan said he was always into art, painting and drawing at first.  He loved doing water colors.  He said he enjoyed the work he did but it was perhaps a little overworked, too detailed and too much time spent trying to capture every highlight on every hair.  It wasn’t until after serving a mission for the LDS Church in Mexico and a time in the army that he was able to devote himself to art as a student at BYU in Provo, Utah.  He didn’t say too much about his painting journey there.  He said his teacher was good at knowing when to step in and help a student that was struggling.  The solution was often to wipe out the painting and start again.  The teacher he spoke of most fondly was his Industrial Design teacher Alexander Darius. Darius gave out no A grades, only one A- and the rest were B+ down.  Jan made sure he was the one to get that A- and worked long hours to prove himself and learnt a great deal when it was over. Even after retiring Jan would visit this man.

After graduating with a BFA in painting he turned to getting a masters degree.  He decided to switch his interest from painting to pottery. In choosing a place to go to school, he searched out the best he could for a teacher, not only that but the best potter in the country that he could find that was teaching. He found such a person in Oakland, California at Mills College, one Antonio Prieto. I do not know much about Prieto other than Jan said he was the best. In order to get into the program, he travelled to California and presented his portfolio and was accepted into the school.  This in spite of the school being (and still is) a women’s only college. He would say he often got his campus mail titled: Ms. Jan Fisher.

Jan Fisher’s pottery teacher at Mills College, 
Antonio Prieto (1912-1967)

He undertook his studies with great zeal and passion.  Prieto was the man who knew and Jan wanted to know everything he was willing to teach. Interestingly Prieto was taught by Pablo Picasso which meant for me that I had a creative line back to a famous artist.  Jan took on learning everything Prieto knew. He became such a proficient learner that he started throwing pots just like Prieto.  Not only that he started acting like him, walking like him and saying things he said.  The other students gave him the nick name the little Prieto. Prieto started getting annoyed with Jan.

Living in the Bay Area, going to an art school in the 1960’s when experimentation in drug use etc. must have been a challenge for a straight up conservative guy like Jan.  He said that he once went to an art show opening and some of the people there started rolling around on the floor naked.  You can imagine how Jan described that one. While the students where preoccupied with this trend, Jan would spend his nights and weekends in the studio creating.  In order to work late he would unlatch a window and when the studio closed down, would come back later through the window and work into the night.

One morning Prieto came in to the studio to find Jan with a huge amount of work on a large table.  That was it for the professor.  He shouted at Jan, look at all this stuff!  There’s no way we’re firing all this, it would tie up our kilns for weeks! Prieto turned to march out.  As he turned away, Jan grabbed the edge of the table and lifted it toward him dumping all the pots on the ground in one great crash. A cloud of dust and debri rolled after Prieto’s heels as he made for the door.  As the cloud of dust settled, having escaped through the door way,  Prieto now peaked his timid head around the corner at a stewing Jan. As Jan would tell the story he would turn his neck side ways, a silent, disbelieving Prieto. It would leave me thinking: wow all that work destroyed, but what a crash!

Jan was failed by Prieto and had to leave the school without his degree.  But that didn’t stop him.   He went to a local college and got his grades up so that he could finish his courses and get his masters degree.  But Prieto had plans to fail him and prevent this.  I’m gonna fail you Fisher!  Jan said he prayed and looked for divine intervention so that he could still make it somehow pass and, like something out of a movie, it happened. Towards the end of term, before the grades were handed out, Prieto was taken ill.  He actually suffered from what Jan called stiff man syndrome and lying in his bed, slowing lost control of his body withered away and died.  All students were given a passing grade, Jan had his degree. Rather a morbid ending but that’s how Jan told it.

After graduating, he had an opportunity to teach seminary in Samoa for about 3 years.  Then he got his job as art professor at Brigham Young University-Hawaii on the beautiful north shore of Oahu.  By the time I got there, 19 years later, there was a good sized facility for 3D art.  But when Jan got there it was just a small shed that Jan added to, pouring cement and building up structures over the years. Working in the summer months, he once built a very large kiln, doing it all with very little or no help from the school. It was mostly from his own resources or free building materials he could find.  He spoke fondly of how he and a Samoan student, Ed Soliai worked to build a brick vaulted kiln with a 30 foot chimney that could fire pieces up to 9 feet tall. It was a very impressive structure.

The interior of the ceramics studio from my day, my male figure in the center. In the background under plastic is the original Manu Hi’i. Behind my male, a Maori warrior by Ken Coffey. The brick  structure behind Ken’s piece is the large kiln Jan built. The open area in the back had more kilns and a bronze foundry which never ran while I was a student.

During that first decade (the 1970’s) at BYUH, besides developing the program and his own art, Jan faced many challenges, most of which I know little about. There was the challenge of keeping his job, going on sabbatical for a year, divorce, remarrying, and the friction he had with his fellow teachers and the administration.  Artistically he did mostly pots and abstract pieces, maybe a little figure work. He would say he liked sculpture but his ladder was up against the wrong wall. When I got there he was all about the figure, not abstractions. In those early years, not withstanding what he preferred, some of his students did do large figure works such as Ken Coffey (a Maori warrior) and Ed Soliai (Samoan Chief) which were still in the studio when I got there. There was a large abstract fiberglass constructed piece I saw that he said nearly killed him because he worked it up without proper protection and landed himself in hospital on his death bed.  He attributes his recovery to a blessing he received while in the ward.  In the early days he threw big huge pots, taller than a person and developed a few different styles of pottery.  One was what he called a multi-chamber pot which was like several pots inside each other joined and the base, then cut down the middle to reveal the different chambers.  He said he got the idea from sea shells.  The other thing that his students were doing when I got there was crystalline glazed pots.  Very beautiful glass-like glazes that had delicate patterns all over the surface.  But by the time I got there he had personally had it with pots.  His saying was 'a pot’s a pot’s a pot.'

One of the pieces that impacted Jan: Moses by Michelangelo.
Jan would say with great passion: "When no one was looking I jumped the barrier, I reached up and closed my eyes and felt the great nose and slowly ran my fingers down his great muscular arm, tears filling my eyes as I went."

Sometime in his teaching he decided to travel to Europe and toured around to see the great art pieces in Italy and France.  He was deeply impressed by Michelangelo and Rodin’s work and came back a changed man.  He now wanted to do figure work.  There was probably more to his metamorphosis but all I really know is he went to Europe and came back wanting to create great figurative art. He built a foundry, for bronze casting, in the back of the ceramics studio.  He also developed methods for creating busts and life-sized figure works for firing in the kiln using water based clay. This method he called the hollow method or pinch method, he had all his students learn and create figures as well. He started to build a body of work of his own and get commissioned work. All of his private commission work was done at the school. It was good for Jan because renting places to create in Hawaii is very expensive and it was good for the students because we could see a more experienced artist at work.  This included the Koloa Monument, a statue to Manu Hi’i, a bust of a prominent business man in Hawaii, a figure riding a horse for St. Louis High School and a Hawaiian bust for Iosepa, Utah and other smaller projects. There may be others that he did before I came, but these I recall the most. Besides this he also did numerous works in clay right along with the students that were fired in the kiln. These included busts and life-size male and female nudes.  The grandest of all these creations was the huge monument to the Sugar Cane workers which was installed in Koloa, Kauai in 1986. He would say, thousands and thousands of man hours were put into creating it.  Although many students helped, he said the primary student that helped him and put in many hours along with Jan was Dennis Stublefield. When he told of what he and Dennis went through to create that piece, of misery, uncertainty, long hours and exhaustion, all I could think of was, I’m glad I wasn’t there!

A happy Jan Fisher on dedication
day of his Koloa Monument

The commission was actually small monetarily, it was not supposed to be as grand as it eventually turned out to be. Jan may have lost money on the whole thing.  But this was his chance to make something special. Once finished, he now had a large monument to his name which helped him get other works, particularly the multiple commissions he got from the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts and the Grand Wailea Hotel on Maui. Even though he did many great works through out his career, the Koloa monument was probably his best work. Looking at the castings there are many imperfections, bad pours and low quality finishing work. The Hawaiian’s head is actually solid bronze because the shell broke during the pour (a blow out) and they filled it up. There was no time for a re pour.  It must have been heavy! When it was installed it didn’t even have a proper patina, just the bare sandblasted bronze.  Over the years it has weathered and so that doesn’t really matter now about the patina although some of the imperfections are much more obvious. Understanding and knowing that it was created from such a small budget, by a teacher and his students on the remote north shore of Oahu, with little experience in casting bronze, on a make shift set up...makes the work, the entire finished piece, an absolutely incredible achievement!

Life sized figures of the Sugar Cane workers. Models were student and his second wife Becky, Don Smiler (a maori) was the big Hawaiian(left).  Jaime Mendame, a sculpture student from the Philippines, was the Filipino(right). Other ethnicities are Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese and Puerto Rican. Above the Hawaiian in the blank area was supposed to be a plantation owner on a horse. Jan hated the idea of including such a figure and after two failed attempts to cast the rider, the owner figure was abandoned.

At this point I can not go on without mentioning an artist that had a great influence on Jan, that he spoke of often and would tell us of art principles and philosophies this artist taught to him; a Samoan artist named Mataumu Alisa, or Mat as Jan sometimes called him. Mataumu was ten years younger than Jan and a student at BYUH before Jan arrived.  Back then Mataumu, a new student from Samoa, was so enthralled with art, did nothing else, that he lost all desire for other academics and was eventually kicked out of BYU-H.  He stayed in Hawaii and went to the Honolulu Academy of Arts where he enjoyed much success, learning and selling his art.  He received work from the State of Hawaii to do large ceramic murals. He later decided to come back to BYU-H in the early 1980’s, a family man, and finish his degree with an eye on getting an MFA and coming back to teach at BYU-H, which after a few years he eventually did.  Despite being an older student, he was well experienced and knowledgeable and fell in with Jan and helped Jan with design problems and gave Jan advice. Jan loved it. His influence can be seen in many of Jan’s pieces from that time period, not the least being the Koloa Monument. Jan would say Mataumu was the greatest living artist and stayed in contact with him for his life.  He went in and out of contact with many friends and relatives, but never Mataumu. It would have been nice if I could have had lessons from Mataumu. Jan tried to repeat some of his words to me as best he could, not as good as the real thing, but I somewhat got the gist of it (hah, maybe not).

A huge influence and mentor to Jan was 
Mataumu Alisa seen here in 1975 with the
beginnings of a mural he did for
Moloka’i High School.

A couple of demonstration busts
Jan made to show the students
how to sculpt their pieces
hallow and fire them.

Before I came Jan had another big commission as well that was halted half way.  He was commissioned by Robert Schuller to create a large bronze fountain for his Crystal Cathedral in California. He had made some progress and had some of the ceramic pieces dipped and ready to pour bronze into when the school shut down his foundry for safety reasons.  He had already received money from Schuller.  Jan tried to install all the necessary devices to make the kiln legal under the new requirements but they could never get them to work right and it bought the whole bronze casting operation at BYUH to an end.  Jan had to pay back all the money he had been advanced.  When I got there I saw the students had cast bronzes at one time, but for the whole 4 years I was there the foundry never ran and it never would again.  All bronze casting Jan did after that was molded in Hawaii and sent to the mainland for bronze casting and then the finished piece shipped back.

The small Manu Hi’i, renditions of Christ, life sized ceramic nudes and the clay sketch for the Robert Wilcox statue

Jan had many faults and problems. People loved him for his passion, being bold and getting things done.  People hated him because he was too bold, said too much and got too many things done which made their lack of productivity uncomfortable. All his art was not the absolute greatest. But he did have flashes of brilliance. He put everything into the tasks he set for himself and all his art students benefitted from it. He never felt threatened by any students that made a good piece of art, he reveled in their success. He was willing to share any insight he had. His enthusiasm was contagious. That is what set him apart among his peers at BYU-H and other programs around the country. This was the stage that was set when I entered the Ceramics Studio as a freshman student in 1989.

Surrounded by sculptures, supplies and equipment, my friend Debi Brown poses for me in the mucky Ceramics
Studio.  Behind her is one of the never to be finished ceramic shells, ready for a bronze pour, for the Robert Schuller fountain at the Crystal Cathedral. Up above to the right on a shelf is my now fired sculpture of my Christ Healing the Blind Man.

The original large kiln fired Manu Hi’i
that was molded and cast in bronze.

Raku firing: Lab assistant Bryan Draper places a red hot pot in a barrel of sawdust. The blast kiln was also used for melting wax out of the ceramic shells for bronze casting.