Hawaii and the time capsule opening at ALL ONE

A 2002 drawing by a Kapi’olani Community College student, Lesley Baptista. On the back she wrote, “Protect all keiki (children).”

As we set up the tools, tables and tent near the ALL ONE sculpture there was a misty rain. Some called it a blessing that graced the beginning of the time capsule opening ceremony.

Close up of wedge holding the sculpture together. Photo: Liz Stetson

In 2002, ALL ONE was installed at the Kapi’olani Community College in Honolulu, Hawaii. I cut the sculpture out of thick “weathering” steel back in Vermont and then shipped it to the college. It was fairly easy to assemble and to install quite close to Diamond Head, at the entrance to the college.

Photo: Fred Stetson

Chancellor Leon Richards greets and welcomes me home. Thirteen years ago in 2002 he was present at the dedication of ALL ONE.

Photo: Fred Stetson

 Reverend Kaleo Patterson blesses the shovels with water and sacred ti leaf before breaking ground.

Photo: Fred Stetson

Daughter Jen Robins and Melody Heidel (both archeologists) dig into the stony hard earth.

Photo: Fred Stetson

Chancellor Richards and Kyle Honda make progress digging with leather shoes and the capsule appears.

Photo: Liz Stetson

Fred Stetson begins sawing the ½ inch thick water pressure pipe we used for the capsule.

Sorting out the artwork.

Children sent drawings from Vermont, USA; Oslo, Norway and from Sendai, Japan to be included with the Hawaii drawings in the time capsule buried at ALL ONE.

Drawings from Williston, Vermont and from Sendai, Japan.

Manga artist Manami Sato from Sendai, Japan did a drawing of her favorite rock stars.

Art professor David Behlke’s watercolor painting titled “Hawaiian Heart Beat”.

There are two ways that ALL ONE connects with our sun and the stars:

When the “cookie cutter” shape under the sculpture is filled with shadow, the sun is overhead. In Hawaii that moment is called La Haina noon. And it happens twice in a year, before summer solstice and after in late May and early June. At this time at solar noon, a person has no shadow.

The second alignment is more conceptual. ALL ONE faces northeast. Around this time in November, the Pleiades star cluster rises in the east as the sun sets in the west. A heliacal rising. Ancient Hawaiians associated this with the return of the god Lono and the beginning of the Makahiki season.

The Maori in New Zealand call this Polynesian connection the Matariki season. At the TELLING STONES sculpture in Mapua, New Zealand, the angle of the rising Pleiades is marked with a jewel-like stone set into a boulder to the southeast. The TELLING STONES marking of the Maori Matariki season is a southern hemisphere reflection of the Hawaiian season honored at the ALL ONE sculpture in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Next, New Zealand

The final capsule opening in this series of five sculptures will be on December 4 at the Mapua School in Mapua. It is located at 4 Stafford Drive off Aranui Drive south from Nelson on Route 6 turning right on to Route 60 the Coastal Highway.

Mapua has been celebrating their 100th anniversary in 2015. We will be joining the festivities. Come on down! (I wish you all could be with us.)

Kate Pond

Quebec

photos Fred Stetson

On equinox, September 23, friends and Canadian students gathered at the sculpture ZIG ZAG in front of the Colby-Curtis Museum in Stanstead, Quebec, Canada.

ZIG ZAG is the third of Kate Pond’s sculptures in her World Sculpture Project that she has visited to open time capsules in 2015.

The Colby-Curtis museum is housed in an Italianate style heritage home built in1859. It contains the collection of the Stanstead Historical Society, contents of a 1900th century home and Museum archives.

photo Fred Stetson

Chloe Southam, director of the museum and Kate discuss the exhibit at the Museum that documents Pond’s five sculptures in the World Sculpture series.

ZIG ZAG
photo Barbara Waters

Friends, teachers and students from the Sunnyside Elementary School in Stanstead gather and dig under ZIG ZAG to find clay artwork and painted stones buried here on equinox in 1995.

photo Sandy Gandervalk

 Director Chloe and Kate use a Skype connection with Deputy Director Dag Andreassen at the Norsk Museum of Science in Oslo, Norway. Dag smiles while standing beside the SOLEKKO sculpture in the late afternoon sun.

 We poke with dowels so as not to harm clay artworks.

Sandy Vandervalk

Young boy in blue finds foot long tube in the hole and is ecstatic! 

photo Sandy Gandervalk

The clay artifacts are carefully washed as they are found. Stanstead College student says: “Maybe I can become an archeologist!”

photos Fred Stetson

 Virginie takes the clean clay pieces into the museum exhibit room.

photo Barbara Waters

 Suspense gathers as we prepare to open the tube.

photo Barbara Waters

We find a pair of earrings, a film canister and along with mildewed papers, a photograph of the Essex High School students in Vermont who created the clay pieces in 1995.

We set the sodden papers to dry in the sun, and plan to have photographer Grant Simeon’s black and white film developed later.

photo Sandy Gandervalk

Stanstead College students and Kate look at photos taken earlier at the sculpture ZIG ZAG.

photo Barbara Waters

Time for a relaxing moment in the sun.

Stanstead College is an independent boarding school for boys and girls in Grade 7 through 12. International students make up a good portion of the student body.

What's next: opening time capsules in Hawaii and New Zealand.

Photo Irene Fertik

We fill the ALL ONE sculpture’s time capsule in 2002 at the Kapi’olani Community College in Honolulu.

On November 19 at 9am, students will dig up the time capsule and move the contents to the entrance of the college library. An exhibition of photographs, drawings and small clay sculptures from the capsules will be part of a month long exhibition.

In New Zealand, elementary school children look at the green ceramic egg-shaped time capsule inside its steel sarcophagus. The rough earth near the TELLING STONES sculpture was too difficult to dig so we placed the capsule safely inside the Mapua School in Mapua, New Zealand.

On December 4, if weather permits, we will move the ceramic “egg” time capsule outside near the TELLING STONES sculpture while students sing English and Maori songs. A small exhibit will be arranged in the school’s lobby and the school will host a public reception. All are welcome to attend.

Time capsule event in Izumi Town, Sendai, Japan

Immersed in the Japanese culture for two weeks was a peak life experience for me! 

I stayed with the interesting and very generous family, Chizuko, Maiko and Koichi Hamada. 

The Mitsubishi Jisho people organized and sponsored a perfect event, and the people at the Meysen Academy attended to all the details making the time capsule event happen like clockwork.

People gather near the HIMEGURI sculpture/sundial. 

Meysen Academy kindergarteners, students from Tohoku International School and the rest of us eagerly await the unearthing of the time capsule. The Mitsubishi engineers first open the concrete vault and then remove the capsule covered with a fabric sac.

At last, we have a look inside!

And we find ceramics made by Tohoku International School students in teacher Sasaki’s class, and pieces made in Milton, Vermont, both made in 1998. Other artwork is two-dimensional drawings by children from twelve schools in Izumi Town, and children in Quebec, Canada; Vermont and Hawaii, USA. Some of the paper art work is damp but the colors and drawings are exciting to see.

Three mothers who found their children’s artwork and a grandmother pose with me. “I am glad to be alive on this special day” says the grandmother.

One mother whose child was in kindergarten in 1998 searches for her daughter’s art piece and later succeeds in finding it.

Mr Fujioka, president of Mitsubishi Jisho, and I meet for the first time.

Wakako Sato greets me after 16 years. She is a city representative in Sendai and is a well known personality. She was my host in 1998 and 1999. Mr Fujioka and Mr Yoshida from Mitsubishi Jisho look on.

Children from Meysen Academy and Tohoku International School place “blessings for Peace and the Wellbeing of the Earth” back into the blue ceramic vessel. The children made scrolls and drawings that will remain buried in ceramic vessel for an undetermined amount of time. Appropriate, because of the great east Japan tsunami on March 3, 2011.

Mitsubishi engineers seal the concrete vault holding the blue ceramic vessel with the “Blessings” inside.

Tsunami waves in Natori city near Sendai reached the height of this monument destroying everything in its path except for a line of tall strong pine trees along the beach. I visited the site with the Hamada family. Fishermen lost homes and boats; farmers lost homes and farms. 

The Canadians built a Pavillion building on the Nartori beach to be an anchor for an open air fish and farmers market.

Stark black calligraphy covers one wall of the building, roughly translated, “ The waters came in but cherry blossoms will bloom again in the spring”

A woman selling her fish smiles in recognition when she sees my long braided hair. Happy people jostle each other as they thread through the crowds to buy produce and fish. Life goes on.

Rubble from the destruction covers the parking lot of the market.

We travel home to Izumi Town and have a delicious cook out. Koichi makes his okonomiyki , a huge concoction of cabbage, shitake mushrooms, slices of ham and other delicacies.

Ceramic artist Jun Iwai explains the Japanese tea ceremony to me. His elegant work is exhibited internationally, most recently in Florence, Italy. Some of his glazes sparkle with crystal or with bits of gold. Using magnifying glasses, one of his techniques includes brushing subtle fine lines of glaze emanating from the center of a vessel. Exquisite work.

More Time Capsule Openings in 2015

Stanstead, Quebec: Colby Curtis Museum near the USA and Canadian international border. A reception opening of an exhibition of World Sculpture Project photographs and children’s artwork is on September 22. 

On September 23, beginning at 10 AM we will unearth the artifacts and artwork from under the ZIG ZAG sculpture. The new artwork will join the exhibition inside the museum and a reception begins at noon.

Honolulu, Hawaii, Kapiolani Community College: The ALL ONE time capsule buried near the sculpture will be opened on November 19. 

Mapua, New Zealand, Mapua School: TELLING STONES’ time capsule will be opened on December 4. The beautiful ceramic vessel is waiting in the Mapua School inside a sealed glass table. 

Japan Bound: Time Capsule Opening

The plaque that commemorates the location of the time capsule.

Kate, known to me as Grandma Kate, arrived in Sendai, Japan on Tuesday and was greeted at the airport by a rare rain, her homestay family from 17 years ago and myself. After slurping through mountains of cold soba (buckwheat noodles) we returned to home base, where we recharged. Jetlagged brain + inundation of the Japanese language = rest required.

The homestay family: Chizuko and Kouichi, and their daughter, Maiko, with Kate and me.

But there’s no moss growing on this baachan (grandma). Amidst the jetlag and exhaustion, we planned and gathered thoughts for a meeting at Tohoku International School (TIS) and “Grape City” – a playfully named company that is connected to many of the project partners.

Her first night here we were treated to an impromptu performance by a lively neighbor who stopped by. She specializes in Japanese kids songs and didn’t hold back when we requested a demonstration. I recognized the classics and joined in.

While we were singing and chatting, Chizuko’s husband, Koichi, worked on dinner. 

Stir-frying up a storm.

Over the past few days we’ve connected with school staff who will help to connect current students to the project, as well as corporate partners who are helping to orchestrate the time capsule opening ceremony. We finally got everything settled for the ceremony, so now it’s time to invite people who contributed artwork 17 years ago and spread the word!

Connecting with Tohoku International (TIS) staff in person and remotely.

Chizuko, Kate and the headmaster’s assistant, Kawaguchi san, at TIS.

Talking in the shade of the HIMEGURI sculpture with Mitsubishi project partners.

Kate and Chizuko admiring the rocks that lead to the sundial.

Angela Robins lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and you can learn about her work building a traditional boat in Japan at: http://angelarobins.com/blog