About Joelle and her show, Merging Streams
by Margaret Bedell

It was not my first trip upcountry to Joelle's. Once before I had looked down at the reddish lava gorge, crowned with the rough rock walls of an old road to the crater, and had painted the agaves, the bananas, all the wonderful earthy plants of a wild canyon. From Joelle Perz's studio/veranda, it all seemed so remote from civilization, so close to the spirit of nature, the theme of the artist's upcoming show Merging Streams. Here, visual art is the medium through which flow influences of East and West in Hawaii. The artist, who has studied Aikido for 15 years, meditates each morning. This is her first show on this subject, merging the stream of her Western education and way of thinking with Oriental philosophies and way of living.

The artist's show, Merging Streams, presents several influences on her new work. First is study of Aikido; second, she has just taken the Albers course with Dick Nelson, developing a true awareness of color; third, a recent trip to Japan inspired both works on paper and oil paintings. In her "indoor" studio, Joelle brought out several of the works to be shown: "A Japanese Woman's Dream" places a very delicate watercolor on feather deckle paper, using a sensitive color combination learned in the Albers course, and depicting a real place, a treasure corner preserved in the mountains; an acrylic painting of a stairway to a temple, started by a monk called Honen in Kyoto, the red stones in the shape of hearts; an oil painting of a Hana stream, the "merging streams" theme; a Japanese temple watercolor; exquisite small fan paintings in watercolor, to be made larger in acrylic on canvas; a hand-pulled lithograph of Buddhist monks, to be enhanced with hand painting; a scroll, part printed on canvas, incorporating black and white lithography with a color field; linocuts of bamboo; a linocut of heart shaped leaves developed as color studies for Dick Nelson, using exquisite paper made by Millie Watanabe on the island. Altogether Merging Streams will be a show using many media. As the artist remarked, which comes first, the idea, the technique, the materials and tools? Indeed, one inspires the other.

Merging Streams will also be a Benefit Fundraiser for Maui Ki-Aikido Shunshinkan Dojo, a training facility just completed in Wailuku. A special series of artist's prints will also benefit Aikido. At the Opening, Christopher Curtis Sensei will talk about Aikido and Art - the practice of seeing the original creative purpose in all forms of endeavors. Ki, the material of the matrix, the pervasive medium, is the fundamental fabric of the universe, with which mind creates.