Putting new twist on old memories

For Maika‘i Tubbs serious art is all play. Home from work, slipping into something comfortable means putting on a gas mask, drawing his (heat) gun, rounding up a bunch of plastic forks and spoons and melting them into poppy fields and butterflies. He is happiest when he can morph something into another, totally fresh incarnation.

Anyone can have a bit of the hoarder instinct, but Tubbs says that coming from a family of hoarders makes stacks and boxes of things totally irresistible. He disassembles, reassembles, melts, twists, crochets and stretches. He says he loves manual labor that is repetitive and meditative.

"I like to take artificial things, made by machines, and bring them back to organic from inorganic." His crocheted endangered birds have nested on the walls of Bishop Museum. His melted spoon poppy gardens sprouted from the floor of the Hono­lulu Museum of Art. His work was part of the "This IS Hawaii" exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. His artist-in-residence work at Canada’s Banff Centre brought enthusiastic invitations to return any time.

Now New York calls. From small-kid days in Kapa­hulu, to Kamehameha Schools and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Hawaii, his next stop will be Parsons The New School for Design for a Master of Fine Arts degree.

Tubbs says the ii Gallery show, his farewell exhibit, is a challenge in space, materials and memory. The worst feature of the gallery is the center support beam that interrupts the flow and the view plane. What to do?

"Use it as the focal point of the exhibition, of course."

As he was working with old cassette tapes, Tubbs began to consider the waning use of VHS tape. What came up were bubbles of memory, which he refers to as "memorings," punctuated with "memory spikes."

"Sometimes I felt I was getting forgetful. I would be telling a story that I was sure was a memory of mine, of small-kid days, of what happened in my family. But then, without my knowing, it morphed into a memory I had of other peoples’ memory. I would retell the story, and my friend would call me on it and say, ‘That last part totally wasn’t you.’ And I would say, ‘No, it totally happened like this,’ only later I would realize that it actually happened to Blanche Deve­reaux on a rerun episode of ‘The Golden Girls,’" he said.

"So that got me thinking about putting all of the things you know into a new thing that is different but that you still know. … These bubbles are about things that aren’t related, but brains bring them back together into a new thing."

To execute this concept and address the pillar in the gallery, Tubbs attached 110 spools of VHS tape, ready to spew forth their memory. The tapes came from an old storeroom and the shelves of artist friends, happy to clean their closets.

As in all Tubbs projects, hours of work preceded the hours of creativity. Tape boxes were pried open, spools removed, holes drilled in each and, finally, attached to the pole.

The art itself requires gardening gloves. Without them blisters would run rampant. Walking in circles, Tubbs pulls each tape so it stretches, becomes stiff and loops on itself on the floor. Pull too hard and it breaks. Knotting the break back together creates the "memory spike."

After hours of stretching, large piles of tape, looking a lot like clumps of black hair in the bathroom sink drain, cover the floor. Then with long skewers, he lifts each pile and creates a stunning and ethereal memory bubble.

For the duration of the show, tape will be available for guests to stretch, uploading their own memory bubble, unraveling and weaving memories together into the larger abstract magnetic landscape. As a bubble changes or moves, it might go flat again, offering the opportunity to pick up sticks and lift it. Instructions are on the wall.

The moment for collectors is now. Tubbs has "cleaned his closets" and is offering some of his art for sale. He explains that his artist friends, led by Kapu­lani Landgraf and the folks at Na Mea Hawaii, said, "No be shy. Remember, you have no place to keep all this, and you have to pay for graduate school!"