Makes Cows Fly and the World Witness Miracles

Breaking News – taking a day off from the dairy, a group of Maui cows were spotted off Lahaina, equipped with masks, snorkels and fins, floating down to the watery realm of angel fish and dolphins. This adventure was reported shortly after the aforementioned cow-pals spent a morning floating up into the clouds over up-country Maui. Not possible, you say? The visual proof, actual and accurate documentation, of both these events, can be found in the watercolor world of the beloved Island artist Peggy Chun.

Beyond her whimsical work, Chun also creates still lifes of stunning realism – such as flower lei draped over koa wood bowls that look so real, the viewer almost needs to touch them. At one watercolor society exhibition, a collector reached for one of Chun’s realistic mangos. He was sure it was 3-D. Imagine his surprise as his fingertips hit not a ripe mango, but rather the glass covering the painting.

Chun’s paintings are the collective Island memory, the place everyone wants to remember. The Peggy Chun Gallery staff says shoppers take one quick glance at Chun’s watercolor of the tin-roofed shack called “Banana Patch Heaven” and want to move right in. “I could live there!” is their immediate response.

Even if you have never driven the winding “Road to Hana,” Chun’s painting creates a lasting memory of the experience. A closer look at this work hints at Peggy Chun’s sense of humor. Hiding among the roadside ti leaves are two friendly geckos (island lizards), one smiling and the other wearing a red carnation lei.

Hidden treasures can be found even in the intricate Chun painting of the Banyan Veranda of Waikiki’s historic Moana Hotel. She challenges you to find the lizard, a gown blowing in the breeze of a third floor window, and the tail of her muse, the black cat named Boo.

Chun’s glowing watercolors tell the story of the Islands. They grace the lobbies and suites of Hawaii’s five-star resorts and hang behind reception desks of the smallest inns. They fill the walls of Island galleries – and homes around Hawaii and the world. At a glance, they bring the warmth of Hawaii to surround the viewer.

The evolution of the Peggy Chun style of painting tells the story of her unending challenge with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The progressive nerve disease took the life of her grandfather, her mother, and her twin sister. Diagnosed with ALS in 2002, Chun knew her technique of painting finely detailed masterpieces would need to change. As her abilities were challenged she continued to defy the incurable disease. In 2003 she lost the use of her right hand. Overnight she taught herself to paint with her left hand. As the left hand became weak she picked up the paintbrush with her teeth. Now paralyzed except for her eye movement, her breath comes through a ventilator. She has transitioned to painting and spelling messages with her eyes on an eye response computer and a handheld spell board. “After all,” she is fond of saying/spelling, “you don’t paint with your hands; you paint with your heart.”

Born in Oklahoma, Chun came to Hawaii with teaching credentials and a teaching job. A second degree in stage design led her toward art adventures. She started a Christmas ornament business. That creative outlet was enough until ALS took the life of her twin sister, Bobbie.

“My sister was a noted artist in the Southwest,” Chun says, “After she passed she came to me in a dream to tell me to paint. So I did.”

Her painting life took off immediately. Her skill and creativity brought collectors from every state and country. They waited in line for a promised original. The lights of her attic studio burned round the clock. She couldn’t paint fast enough. Print reproductions and the perfecting of the giclee process, duplicating her originals on fine art paper, allowed everyone to own their “perfect Peggy.”

Next came large murals in restaurants; sculpture done with her artist son Eric Chun; and classes taught in her home-turned-gallery. “There is an artist in everyone,” she tells her students, “and it’s just waiting for you to let it out!”

Filling painting cups with water led students to Chun’s ultimate bulletin board, the refrigerator. Truisms are held up with magnets. One slip of paper says something about a neat studio being home to a cluttered mind. Another is Chun’s oft-recited rule, “Do the thing you fear the most and the death of fear is certain.” The advice that opens her new book, The Watercolor Cat, by Mutual Publishing, story by Shelly Mecum, is printed out and taped on the kitchen wall in 24-point type. “If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint’ then by all means PAINT and that voice will be silenced” (attributed to Vincent Van Gogh). The cat in the new book is none other than Boo, a.k.a. Sara. As a small black kitten, she arrived at Chun’s door, took over the household, and put her paw prints on “everything important” in the studio. In the book, Boo tells Chun’s story with beguiling cat humor.

Her newest masterpiece, reminiscent of Van Gogh, was created with the help of 142 school students and Polish artist and art restoration master Magdalena Hawajska. The four-by-eight-foot mural honors the beloved Father Damien, who, without fear, lived out his life on the island of Molokai, ministering to those who suffered from leprosy, or Hansen’s Disease. The children, students from Holy Trinity School, took direction from Peggy Chun. They acted as Chun’s hands, painting thousands of tiny watercolor squares. Answering a prayer and a phone call, Hawajska flew from Poland, giving up many months of her life, living at Chun’s studio and serving as the artist’s apprentice. Under further direction by Chun, Magdalena Hawajska produced the Damien painting, stroke by stroke. Then she applied the tiny mosaic squares. The resulting art will travel in Hawaii but is destined to be gifted to the Vatican to support Damien’s candidacy for sainthood.

What is next for Peggy Chun? A new book is in the works, written by Chun with eye-control on the computer. The story, with photos by Linda Ching, features the escapades of her granddaughter Indy and her twin sister Bobbie’s granddaughter Jade. The book is called Zooper Girls. The story of their antics at the Honolulu Zoo is pure Peggy Chun.

Meanwhile, Chun is surrounded every day by a group of friends called the “Peg’s Legs.” Seven days a week, for over five years, they have volunteered to work shifts, helping the professional caregivers and filling Chun’s requests for celebrations. Parties are planned, decorations hung, and guests converge, spilling into the lush grounds of the artist’s home and studio, just as Peggy’s passion sweeps over everyone who visits her Nu’uanu Valley gallery, above Honolulu, on the island of Oahu.

What is the secret of Peggy Chun’s life? One of Chun’s student artists may have said it best: “Even though Peggy can’t move at all, her heart moves around people. Her love is all around, touching people’s hearts.”