An artistic end to Hawaii
The Donkey Mill teaching experience had finally arrived!
After a long period of being away from Oregon I was starting to become ansi. It’s hard to even say that because all of the places I have been and now Hawaii are just amazing places. Theres just some people my life that are hard to be away from for too long. We all have those people. thankfully todays technology makes its easier with all the different ways to stay in touch and even see one another faces. that definitely helps me be able to stay out longer.
A few weeks after arriving on the Big Island I applied to teach a kids and/or adult workshop at Donkey Mill art center, 3 miles south of the historic village of Holualoa. My Hawaiian cousins had exposed me to this creative area of the island. I wasn’t hearing back from the art center so naturally I figured I needed to give them more notice so maybe next year I would come back and teach. One afternoon I was sitting at a coffee shop enjoying some big island boocha (kombucha) when I decided to start looking for my plane ticket home. There were some decent deals and as I found a flight that looked perfect, my phone rang! It was Donkey Mill calling to offer me a job as the ONLY teacher for the kids spring break camp!
By this picture lurking below and the title of this blog post, you already know I took the position. Boy did I take the position! I had no idea what I was saying yes to! Sure I had experience teaching kids art classes during past summers at Art Adventures, located at Oregon College of Art and Craft but this wasn’t the same. Like, AT ALL!
Art Adventures had a handful of teachers in their own outdoor workshop/ tents, groups of kids divided up by age and each group had a camp counselor with them for the entire week. There were art assistants to help the teachers or to help the counselors and there was before and after care along with after lunch supervision while the teachers took their lunch hour and refreshed. Donkey Mill didn’t have any of that! It was, to put it nicely, an organized chaos for someone like me who had clearly been spoiled as a teacher. None the less, I had a blast with these local kids who sent me home exhausted each and every day!
We put in some long hours together so I had to get really creative as these kiddos had plenty of time to finish assignments in one day that I was use to the A.A. kids taking all week to complete! I found ways to slow them down. I gave them 2 breaks on on top of their lunch hour and we took nature walks and discussed art along the way.
One thing that was hard to adjust to, from what I had experienced at Art Adventures was that I never got a break from these creative kiddos. I was a teacher and a child-sitter for about 13 kids for a solid week! Starting at 8:30am and going till 4 to 4:30pm, I was in complete GO mode! The guy upstairs from me teaching the middle & high school kids had a peaceful hour lunch to himself. I’m not sure how I got so lucky. Low man on the totem pole maybe? Haha!
The open air studio with a killer view of the ocean and getting the chance to get creative with tomorrow’s future was worth it! So worth it that I went back the following spring and did it again along with a one day adult class.
My cousin’s oldest son Kaninau joined me a few times during the week to assist but he also had plenty of time to create some fun stuff as well. The kids in the class LOVED him and he’s great with younger kids so it was a win win!
The above photo is a demo I set up but instead of teaching it myself I taught it to Kaninau and the older girl in the class and had them demo it to the littles. An attempt to switch up the flow of class ands keep everyone on their toes a bit.
After lunch I would sometimes send them off to silently draw in nature but within eyeshot of me, after all I was responsible for all of them. This was definitely a good exercise for them and calmed them down for a short period of time.
As any sort of painted work started to come to completion we would hang it up on this tent frame to dry. It worked out great except for when bursts of warm air came howling thru, sending the kids and I running with our arms flailing in the air trying to catch them all.
I had the class pick out their favorite geli painting that we did for this photo. Donkey Mill wanted one for this publication and I of course wanted one as well. The little girl in the very front on the right, I will never forget! Her name is Charlie and she was THE cutest! She was so sweet and funny and always showed up to class with a big bow or flower in her hair while wearing clothes that I personally, wouldn’t want to get paint on. I worked hard to keep an apron on her at all times. She was also my youngest student but she did great at keeping up and understanding what we were doing.
This is Neuron, one of 2 studio cats at Donkey Mill, the other one didn’t come around much. This fella had an extra toe that made him extra special.
And then there was this gecko that we discovered (horrible photo but it does the job) that had an extra tail. Look closely and you can see it.
After my week teaching was completed Kaninau and I started working on our own project together. His neighbor who is also my good friend Zoe, is a mosaic artists and a very good one at that! Neither Kaninau or I had ever done real mosaic work so she guided us through one. He has the finished creation in his room in Kona. It was a wave curling over with the sun setting behind it. I’m not sure I ever got a photo of the finished piece. It was really nice to spend some good quality time creating with him and learning from Zoe as my time on the island was wrapping up.