Maui
I started working for Park West in the very beginning of 2018. And now I proudly represent the largest privately owned art gallery in the world. Operating on over 85 ships worldwide for over 50 years, Park West is based in Southfield, Michigan and boasts the largest framing facility in the world in Miami Lakes, Florida. A s a company, we host around 300 art auctions every week, all over the world. We boast one of the largest collections of Picasso ceramics, Rembrandt etchings, Chagall lithographs, and Joan Miro artworks in the world. It is still a dream of mine to expand my career as a professional artist. Surrounding myself with these superb masterworks is an incredible way to saturate my life in art. I now curate professional exhibitions for our artists every week, direct a minimum of 3-5 art auctions weekly, and orchestrate the behind-the-scenes operations of our gallery on board each ship I join.People frequently think because we live on a cruise ship we’re living in vacation-mode.
Picture something for just a moment. Imagine your life without days off. Without weekends. Now pretend every morning is Monday morning. And every night is Friday night. While we sail long distances to wake up in beautiful vistas all over the world, I work seven days a week for up to eight months at a time. And if you had told me three years ago that I would have a job one day where I’d work seven days a week and love every minute of it, I would have laughed. Now here we are.There’s a good quote floating around somewhere that says an artists’ resume begins at their birth and everything they experienced their whole lives results in the creation of artwork. That sounds nice and all, but art is both more and less than that. Some things affect an artist more, some affect the work in ways we’d never expect, and sometimes, it just feels good to paint something pretty.
When I think about my work and what i want it to accomplish, I get a very deep save-the-world sensation. That if i can dedicate myself to my craft for long enough, I can use it to raise money to save the world’s oceans, the rainforests, the people and animals all over this beautiful planet.
So here are my humble beginnings. I paint because, for just a little, my mind is quiet and my hands are busy. Because it’s fun to feel the brush pull the rich, buttery paints across the canvas. I can blend the colors in such a way that you can hear the splash of the waves, taste the salty spray, and feel the rush of water around you.
Now being on board I don’t have much time to paint, and there’s so much wilderness to explore! Since my family enjoyed the letters I wrote home last year about Vietnam, Singapore, and the rest of South East Asia, I thought I would continue the tradition more fully with pictures and in-depth descriptions of the foods, the history, the culture, and the beauty of the Aloha state.
With almost 48 hours in Maui every week, you’d think I’d have seen it all by now, but this island just has so much to offer that I’m lucky enough to enjoy a little more of this paradise every time. We dock in Kahului, the quiet, northern side of the island. Sundays are a great day to go on adventures, enjoy a leisurely luncheon, or sip a coffee while checking emails.
Nestled in the heart of the mountain valley is one of my favorite restaurants in the world. The Mill House boasts an exquisite farm-to-table cuisine filled with local flavor and innovative twists on old favorites, and a from scratch attitude that perpetuates every dish. Using fresh ingredients means the menu changes with the seasons, almost everything is made in house, and the wait staff are extremely helpful in terms of guiding the journey of your meal. Built out of old sugarcane plant machinery, the Mill House’s rich heritage and tradition of sugarcane harvests and processing is celebrated in an array of flavorful cuisine and rum cocktails highlighting the local fruits and vegetables. The pond feature behind the main dining room contains several 12 ton gears, each having worked with the flywheels on the bridges and with the cane roller before the economic downfall of the sugarcane plantation. Now they serve as structure, decor, and an interactive slice of history.
Overhead you can see a set of what were known as cane grabbers, the clawed machinery that would scoop the cane from the harvest field in massive bunches. In its entirety, the Maui Tropical Plantation, founded in 1983, is a full 1800 acres, more than half of which is productive farmland. Originally a sugarcane plantation, it now boasts a diverse selection of sustainable agriculture. Early on, donkeys would carry the sugarcane to the plant, but then when production exceeded the limit of the animals, trains were built and developed to move the sugarcane through processing on the plantation. And even now, a little train carries tour guests through plantation fields and finishes with a cup of freshly harvested seasonal fruits.
For those seeking a bit of adventure, or maybe a great way to entertain the kids while the parents enjoy the tour, they also offer a zip line course to give you the birds-eye view of the plantation grounds, the gear ponds, and the open-air archways and lanai of the Mill House restaurant. Now, the menu reads more like an artisanal combination of flavors rather than meals. Best shared by pairs or groups, the seasonal menu offers home-grown and from-scratch local flavors. Try something new, like the roasted beef bone marrow, served with wood-fired flatbread, a dish of pickled mushrooms paired with a ginger leek relish, and a tiny spoon for scooping the rich and juicy marrow from the bones themselves onto your flatbread. Or maybe you think you’ve had a pork or beef bun in the past and liked it? You’ll quickly discover that the manapua, with braised beef inside and a sweet and spicy teriyaki sauce dipping - the best version you’ll ever meet. The fire-roasted vegetables are a variety of greens and root veggies with a touch of lemon and a wonderfully light hint of woody smoke.
Two staple dishes for me lately have been the taro leaf risotto and the roasted pork belly, both dishes fantastic to share. Now this risotto is unlike any I’ve seen before, its bright and velvety green hue comes directly from the taro leaf, and it’s comprised both long-grain wild rice and puffed grains. A few pickled shallots grace the top of the bowl, and the parmesan is melted throughout. Now the pork belly is served amidst a barley porridge with a delicately savory flavor accentuated by the succulent bites of pork, slices of onions, dashi, and a runny egg in the very center. The moment it is set upon the table, I take a fork and stir in the runny egg, watching the fluid yellow yolk spread gently through the bowl.
As a child I hated when my food would touch on the plate. Okay, even into adulthood I still didn’t like it. Until Mill House. Largely until these two dishes, the risotto and the pork belly. But with a scoop of each on my plate, I can’t help but love the richly textured risotto blending perfectly against the barley porridge served with the pork belly. I even try to get both in the same bite now. Or in combination with the bone marrow. Maybe a slice of flatbread with a few of the roasted vegetables. If your mouth isn’t yet watering, there are a few other delectable dishes I’ll tempt you with. The braised beef pasta is made with a hand-rolled and cut noodle with tomato and garlic crumble. It is melt-in-your-mouth delicious, and a great safe choice for the picky eater in your party. They also offer a selection of wood-fired pizzas, a burger, and a dessert menu to round out the day with something sweet if you haven’t yet had enough! Of course the food is the focus at the Maui Tropical Plantation, but with a history steeped in sugarcane production, they also offer some of the best handcrafted cocktails. I frequently order the daiquiri, a light, tart, and refreshing martini made with the Old Lahaina Silver Rum, produced right here on the island. The drink menu is designed in a way to guide your palette to your ideal flavor profile, even containing a “map” of different rums and not just descriptions of the flavors, but allusions to what you might keep in your liquor cabinet or wine cellar back home, creating an interactive and fun way to select a drink, knowing that whatever you choose, you’re sure to enjoy it.
One of the most spectacular parts of this beautiful place is getting to see live, working fields and produce growing right there on the property. It feels good to know that what you’re eating inside is really coming straight from the land. We’ve spent a lot of time here, eating, drinking, and of course snapping photos to send home, and the pineapple fields always make an appearance.
Their vivid colors stand out against the grassy fields, cool lush mountains, and bright blue sky, and provide the perfect backdrop for a lovely walk after a delicious and wholesome lunch. The peace of mind, heart, and soul that the Maui Tropical Plantation provides you is unparalleled. The food is superb, the experience magical, and the scenery around you is paradise.
Across the island from where we dock, on the Southern side, a bustling little shoreside town has been blossoming for many years. The activity has been alive on Front Street since the 1820’s, and in 1873 William Owen Smith planted a banyan tree right in the middle of the park by the port to celebrate the Christian Missionaries 50th visit. It marks the spot of the Old Lahaina Fort, and remains the largest banyan tree in the United States today, spanning across the entire park from street to street. In the native Hawaiian language, La Haina actually stands for “cruel sun” describing the bright and warm weather of this part of the island.
Now in 1795 before the unification of the islands, King Kamehameha actually took over the small town and turned it into his capital from 1820-1845. And due to the unrest going on at the time, the Lahaina fort was constructed to protect the small town from riotous sailors.
On front street, there’s an art gallery every few storefronts it seems, boasting wildly different artworks from world-class contemporary artists as well as ones who have passed on but leave their legacy for us to enjoy, like Erte and Dali. Our favorite up and coming art gallery to visit is the Derubeis Fine Art Gallery, where they actually host meet-and-greets with artists we offer in our collection on board. So we ventured out to Lahaina one Sunday on a whole-team adventure to meet Matt Beyrer, my fellow Florida artist who paints his natural scenes into and using the wood grain of the boards he paints on.
After a walk through the galleries to see our favorites, Derubeis, Beyrer, Nano, Wyland, Kush, and Wyland, we stopped by Fleetwood’s for happy hour lunch specials like ahi poke, truffle fries, lobster mac-n-cheese, and a fantastic set of Greek lamb sliders with tzaziki sauce. We may wind and wander back to the car, we have to stroll through the outlets of Lahaina, where I like to stop by my favorite brand stores, Calvin Klein, Kate Spade and Michael Kors. It’s a great way to update professional wardrobe without breaking the bank, or find a designer souvenir with some Hawaiian exclusive styles.
Meeting Matt Bearer
I met Matt Beyrer on a warm, sunny day in Lahaina and we had the best conversation about his artistic style, Natural Expressionism. Matt Beyrer enthusiastically complimented my artworks and artistic philosophy, and wished me the best in my artist’s journey.
Teagan at the top of Haleakala
With a peak sitting far above the cloud break , Haleakala mountain is one of the spiritual centers of the cultural history here on Maui. This giant shield volcano forms over 75% of the island of Maui. At the highest peak, Pu’u ‘Ula’ula, or “Red Hill,” it reaches a mighty 10,023 feet. Haleakala was named the “house of the sun. ” It is said that its crater is the home of the grandmother to the demigod Maui, who taught him to catch the sun and slowly drag it across the sky for a longer day. Maybe he learned to do this because of how cold he became at the summit, with temperatures around 40 degrees Fahrenheit. There are many great lookout points along the switchbacks of the Haleakala Highway, constructed in 1935. A few visitors’ centers also track the way up the mountain with information, guides, and allimportant restrooms also along the way. The air is fresh and clear but thin, so keep that in mind as you hike, walk, or bike around the mountain. In fact, to climb down the trails into the crater, one must descend approximately 2000ft, making it a very difficult return journey
back up the slopes. My family and I took an excursion from the ship to the Haleakala Sunset. And while the pictures we have of the actual sunset are anticlimactic to say the least, you can’t blame the weather pattern on a tour guide. On our way up the mountain we were looking down upon the clouds, looking down upon the slopes as if we were the gods of Mount Olympus. And at the summit, after staking out the best spot along the railing, getting our phone cameras ready to capture the moment, a whole rush of clouds swooped in, over the sun, and concealed it’s brightness. Feeling a little disheartened after a long day, we trekked back to the restrooms for a final pit stop before getting back on the bus. And what to our wondering eyes should appear? But a beautiful reflection of the sunset in the clouds falling into the crater.
They moved with grace, pinks and blues and purples blending against each other. The rich, deep red Earth below. A calm settled over us, a silence, a pensive moment of just us and the clouds.
And it was here behind the nature center, past the restrooms, that we found one of the most spectacular views yet of the mountain’s crater. This valley was likely formed not from a volcano’s collapse like a typical caldera, but instead from two headwalls of larger erosional valleys meeting at the summits edge. This gorgeous peak above the clouds also has a remarkably clear view of space, with little light pollution, making Haleakala a very desirable location for space and scientific studies. It has a volcanic hazard rating of 3 or 4 on most slopes, that is on a scale out of 9. The areas near the more active volcanoes on the big island are rated at 1, and the regions of Mauna Kea and Kohala are a tame 7-9. Local Hawaiian geese, or Nene, are everywhere on the slopes of the mountain. Though at one point the geese had died off completely from the mountain, they were brought back with the help of boy scouts who would hide the birds in their backpacks.
More endangered species live here than any other National Park in the United States! So it is very important to stay off of the terrain because you could accidentally crush the microorganisms forming a complex ecological relationship in the soil. This natural balanced ecosystem has allowed these native endangered species to survive for so long. At some choice points along the drive up to the summit, you might be lucky enough to get a photo of you holding the sun! Make sure you take a bunch- one of them is sure to turn out great! In the pictures below, you can see the clouds bouncing gently against the rocks, the volcanic soil, the real grit and texture of the Earth. When you plan your trip here, keep in mind the park is closed several days out of the year for spiritual practices of the native Hawaiian peoples, and you won’t be permitted access on those days. But these views are so worth the trip!