The Four Seasons Resort Maui offers guests a museum quality art experience

Hawaii’s great resorts are famed for their creature comforts. Think poolside cabanas where they spritz you with chilled water and offer to rub your toes. Elegant dining emporiums cooled by ocean breezes. A spa and massage center, lest the aforementioned toes need to be revitalized after an unexpected treasure hunt. Are these unlikely places for the ultimate art experience? Not according to fine art collection wizard Julie Cline.

“Put art where the people are,” says Julie Cline, master designer of the contemporary Hawaiian art collection that reaches out and wraps its energy around all who pass through the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea. Hundreds of handmade prints, original paintings, sculptures, photography, textiles, artifacts, wood carvings, vessels and feather lei, fill every lobby, room, corridor and=2 0eatery in the hotel. Art hangs in the fitness center, the spa and, yes, even the restrooms.

The collection is a testament to Cline’s ability to involve every viewer in the personal experience of art. Describing her theme, Cline says that the collection celebrates the “new generation” of artists who have reinterpreted Hawaii’s ancient traditions and myriad cultural influences. Their inspiration is Hawaiian, Polynesian, Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, Philippino, and Korean, yielding modern art from old roots.

The collection is a testament to the vision of Thomas Steinhauer, regional vice president and general manager of the resort. The $50 million renovation of the resort offered what might be called a “blank canvas,” perfect for a totally innovative concept in resort decor. At the preview of the installation of the? works, Steinhauer said the resort was “proud to honor Hawaii’s fine artists by sharing their commitment to telling the story of Hawaii’s vital cultures.”

The resort’s staff really knows the art. They are comfortable giving docent tours a la big city art museums. They talk about each piece of art as if they knew the creator personally. For nearly all the art, they do. After the collection was installed, Julie Cline, along with Thomas Steinhauer and resort director of marketing, Mark Simon, invited the artists for a visit. All artists who were available were hosted for a weekend walking tour. Each artist spoke about their inspiration, how they were reinterpreting their connections to the land and to the culture in modern art terms.

“By the end of the weekend,” Cline says, beaming, “artists and art lovers were united in the thrill of understanding. They were speaking a common language.”

Take A Walk

The collection begins at the hotel entrance with two colossal heads, each about half the size of a Mini Cooper. The ceramic gatekeepers were created by world-renowned artist Jun Kaneko. Cline suggests, “Think of them as monumental ceramic guardians.”

Some existing art was brought back after the renovation. It is work considered important for its influences from Asia, Japan and Hawaii. Cline’s years of research formed the new collection. Raised on Oahu, she talks about her lifetime passion to bring th e collected works to a home in Hawaii. She credits the selected artists with making a journey to find their work, their voice, noting that the work tells the story of contemporary art in Hawaii. The listing of artists reads like the Who’s Who of art in Hawai’i. The booklet, and a convenient map of the art placement in the common areas, is free at the front desk.

“To set your own walking pace,” Cline suggests, “check out the iPod version of the tour.” The podcast can be downloaded free of charge from the iTunes podcast library. Guests may borrow a portable audio player from the concierge desk.

Talking Art

One guest described the experience of talking art and listening to the artists as a mini-masters degree program in Island art. Steps away from Jun Kaneko’s guardians, Piikea Clark and his wife, Sue Pearson, described their single print kapa as work that speaks of their Polynesian ancestors. They talked of heritage, land, the life source, memory and putting a positive thought into the future.

Some of the artists have worked in concert. Joyce Kozloff’s wall-size Island map prints and Deborah Nehmad’s towering sumi ink scrolls share a co mmon thread. Both artists printed at the HuiPress of the Hui No’eau Visual Arts Center in upcountry Maui where the director of printmaking is Paul Mullowney. His art, giant prints of ethereal dragonflies, graces the resort’s corridors.

On tour, a docent may mention that young painter Jason Teraoka’s family portraits tug on the emotions. The artist’s family may not be at all like the viewer’s, but the connection seems to be universal. Pride shows in a docent’s face when they note that local youngster Jason will be exhibited at the most prestigious art fair in the world, Art Basel in Switzerland.

Turning a corner can lead to the dynamic paintings of artist Mary Mitsuda or the priceless handmade kapa prints of Marie McDonald. Elegant Island women, wrapped in the fabrics of Hawaii and Tahiti, look to be stepping off the canvas painted by Yvonne Cheng. Wayne Levin’s underwater photography is breathtaking, leading to the always-asked question, “How did he get that shot?” Tall guardian figures of turned wood by Ron Kent and terrazzo carved by Randall Shiroma seem to nod approval. Kent describes his piece as having the beauty already inside. “I just encouraged it,” he says. Now a world-renowned carver, Kent began his carving career with a wood turner from Sears, a $39 gift from his wife. Many pieces carry a message. Kaili Chun’s koa wood, glass and stone sculptures may suggest, “build a firm foundation before teaching others.”

Surf photos, Don Ed Hardy’s “Wave Warrior” tattoo-like prints and Louis Martin’s “Aloha Icon” surfboard brighten alcoves. For total fun, Sherry Holt’s vintage fabric “Wiggle Dress” is framed under glass. The dress design brings back immediate memories of early Dorothy Lamore films with palm trees, a full moon and a leading man who burst into song. Holt’s career began with clothing lines for Hawaii and later designing lines for international collections. Even more fun is the fact that Holt is the sister of Julie Cline.

Cline describes her art odyssey as beginning when she was invited to create an earlier collection at the Four Seasons Hualalai on the Big Island. “The story told at Hualalai is from the arrival of Captain Cook through statehood,” she says. “Here on Maui we have taken the art from Cook’s time forward, into the 21st century.” The message of the Maui collection is the pulse of what’s happening in Island art. Cline notes that the Four Seasons Resort Maui collection breaks new ground by showcasing under-recognized and under-valued exciting new art being produced in the Islands.

The art leads visitors on epic walks. Many guests report to the concierge that they have never “walked an entire hotel” before. Each evening the turn-down notes include cultural offerings, activities and a new word or two to learn in the Hawaiian language.

Without a doubt, the Hawaiian word of the day, everyday, at the Four Seasons Maui should be Mahalo, thank you, for putting art in unexpected places.