{"id":27910,"date":"2025-04-17T05:00:07","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T15:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/?p=27910"},"modified":"2025-04-15T21:03:14","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T07:03:14","slug":"artkcc-club-beautifies-campus-with-bench-painting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/17\/artkcc-club-beautifies-campus-with-bench-painting\/","title":{"rendered":"Art@KCC Club Beautifies Campus with Bench Painting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Art@KCC’s members gather together around a bench located at the bottom of ‘Ilima ramp to bring Kay Yogi’s design to life for the bench painting event. (Photo by Bowen Wang)<\/p>\n

By Bowen Wang | Staff Writer<\/h5>\n

Art@KCC, the rebrand of Kapi’olani Community College’s former art club, works to develop a community of artists within KCC. Actively facilitating opportunities for both current and prospective New Media Arts students within the major to connect with one another as written in their mission statement.<\/p>\n

One of the past events held by Art@KCC this academic year was the bench painting event. The event, which was held every two weeks on Mondays from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. and started in September and ended in March, was located by \u02bbIlima ramp next to the cactus garden. The idea behind the bench painting event was drafted during a meeting at Student Congress. The topic of the meeting centered around campus beautification and student engagement within the campus. Fourteen benches located around campus were a point of discussion within the meeting, as they had plans to eventually either renovate or refurbish them.<\/p>\n

“Being able to bench paint at KCC has been such a fun and collaborative effort with the art club,” said Keaolani Yogi, a native Hawaiian and Okinawan Student, who painted one bench. “The beautification and student input and individuality into the KCC campus is beneficial not only to student but to the school itself. ”<\/p>\n

Some of the first few designs drafted up for the bench painting included an \u02bbi\u02bbiwi bird (commonly known as the scarlet honeycreeper) designed by Yogi, who is working towards a Bachelor of Arts in Cinematic Arts-Animation at the University of Hawai\u2018i at M\u0101noa. Yogi is employed as a graphic designer for the University of Hawai\u2018i and hopes to work in the 2D animation industry with a focus on character design and digital illustration.<\/p>\n

Yogi created the design digitally at first with consideration for the bird to be the focal point of its composition.<\/p>\n

“Compiling different images from Pinterest, DLNR, and the Maui Forest bird recovery project, I desired to couple the bird with the \u02bb\u014chi\u02bba lehua branch since both of these beings are intertwined,” said Yogi.\u00a0<\/strong>“For this bench design, I first wanted to create a design that directly correlated to the islands. Rather than a visually aesthetic piece, I wanted the purpose of the design to serve both as a both a reminder and a symbol.”<\/p>\n

Bautista’s design for the bench painting event depicted on a bench, it was created to be the polar opposite of the I ‘iwi bird design depicting a seabird and an ocean view.<\/span>\u00a0(Photo by Bowen Wang)<\/span><\/p>\n

The other designs that were created for the bench painting included a Manu O K\u016b bird alongside an oceanside view designed by the club president Maya Bautista as well as an iteration of Van Gogh’s famed painting Starry Night. Bautista decided to create the design to continue on Yogi’s theme of Hawaiian endemic birds and on the request of the Pasefika Club, which inspired her to continue on the trend of representing endemic native Hawaiian fauna. The design featured would be the opposite of Yogi’s design as it depicted an ocean scene and seabird.<\/p>\n

Yogi saw her \u02bbi\u02bbiwi bird on the bench as a connection to the struggles of the Native Hawaiians here in Hawai\u02bbi with more Native Hawaiians living on the mainland than in their home state.<\/p>\n

“As a Native Hawaiian, these birds matter and represent not only the struggles of extinction, they face but also the similarities between the dwindling population of Native Hawaiians on island,” Yogi said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Late into the day Art@KCC work on the bench depicting the \u02bbi\u02bbiwi bird alongside snacks and brushes provided by members.<\/span>\u00a0(Photo by Bowen Wang)<\/span><\/p>\n

“When people see this bench, I want people to remember that our \u02bb\u0101ina\u2019s native species still need our k\u014dkua to live and prosper,” Yogi said. “I hope this bench will also bring awareness to people who aren\u2019t familiar with the threats the \u02bbi\u02bbiwi and the \u02bb\u014dhi\u02bba lehua (native trees) face.”<\/p>\n

Art@KCC ultimately ended up deciding to paint Yogi’s design in December. The painting was done by students and club members dropping by or to help with the painting process. The bench painting was on hiatus for winter break and the first half of the spring semester before eventually having its final event on March 10.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
In all, two benches were painted in the two painting sessions. The second bench also by ‘Ilima ramp,<\/strong> that was painted during the final bench painting session depicted another endemic Hawaiian bird, the Manu O K\u016b.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
“What bench painting means to me is that a group of individuals care enough and have the drive and motivation to not only provide this service for free but also take the time and creative energy to do so just because we love our community and where we live,” Yogi said. “It\u2019s making a mark on the campus that will have a positive effect and hopefully encourage more clubs to do the same.”<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Art@KCC’s members gather together around a bench located at the bottom of ‘Ilima ramp to bring Kay Yogi’s design to life for the bench painting event. (Photo by Bowen Wang) By Bowen Wang | Staff Writer Art@KCC, the rebrand of Kapi’olani Community College’s former art club, works to develop a community of artists within KCC. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":27917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,22,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campusfeatures","category-clubs","category-features","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}