Hawaiian Telcom paints over unsolicited Wyland mural on Maui

Hawaiian Telcom on Monday painted over an unauthorized mural that well-known marine artist Robert Wyland had painted on its Dickenson Street building in Lahaina over the weekend.

The artist, known simply as Wyland, acknowledged he did not have permission to spray-paint a life-size image of a 65-foot-long, female humpback whale on the side of the Hawaiian Telcom building.

In an interview with the Honolulu Star- Advertiser Monday, Wyland apologized and said he hoped Hawaiian Telcom would not paint over the mural he created over two days — totaling 3-1/2 hours — on the building.

But the company did paint over it and Hawaiian Telcom said it never received an apology directly from Wyland.

“Over the weekend, Hawaiian Telcom was notified by the Maui Police Department of possible unauthorized painting activity on one of our secured properties,” the company said in a statement to the Star- Advertiser. “Hawaiian Telcom had not authorized any painting. As a public utility company, it is our responsibility to maintain our facilities, so today we took action to remove the unauthorized work.”

Hawaiian Telcom, which has been owned by Cincinnati Bell since July 2018, soon may have a new owner. On Dec. 23, Toronto-based Brookfield Infrastructure said it reached a deal to buy Cincinnati Bell for $2.6 billion in cash and debt.

The move by Wyland — and Hawaiian Telcom’s response — represents a setback for an artist known around the world for his “whaling wall” murals.

“I apologize for not running it up the food chain,” he told the Star-Advertiser on Monday. “I’m so passionate. I swear to God I don’t think about those things. I kind of painted it and look for forgiveness later.”

In 2017 Wyland — a part-time North Shore resident — successfully invoked a relatively obscure and complex 1990 federal law called the Visual Artists Rights Act to get Hawaiian Airlines to back down on plans he said would have illegally altered two murals he painted in 1999 on the sides of the Airport Center building on Ualena Street in Honolulu.

VARA, as it is known to lawyers and stunned property owners who learn about the law, gives artists sweeping protections that could prevent property owners from painting over a mural or altering any structure, such as a wall, that carries their work.

Wyland told the Star- Advertiser he had signed paperwork giving him permission to paint on the Airport Center building, but had no such authorization to paint on the Hawaiian Telcom building in Lahaina.

“Do I dot all the I’s and cross all the T’s? Sometimes I don’t,” he said. “I’m the first to admit it.”

Wyland said he was eating dinner at Lahaina Coolers on Dickenson Street before sunset Saturday and kept staring at “the ugliest eyesore wall” that belongs to Hawaiian Telcom. He said he had walked by the building many times and described its facade as “ugly white with fading, peeling blue.”

“I had a vision,” he said. “I saw whales swimming across the wall. It’s a powerful statement for not only the plight of the whales but the plight of the ocean.”

So he went to an Ace Hardware store and spent about $100 on six different colors of spray paint. He was particularly proud of the whale’s blue, weeping eye, which he said represented the planet Earth.

Soon “hundreds” of people began cheering the artist on, he said, and then came seven or eight Maui police officers.

“There wasn’t one negative comment, except one cop who said it was vandalism,” Wyland said. “I said, ‘I added $1 million in value to this building.’”

When asked by police if he had permission from Hawaiian Telcom, Wyland said he did and the officers left.

Pressed on the issue of whether he had permission, Wyland told the Star- Advertiser, “The controversy is part of the art.”