Tape No. 31-46-2-99 & 31-47-2-99

ORAL IIlSTORY INTERVIEW

with

Harne McVay (HM)

Manoa, O'ahu

August 5, 1999

BY: Holly Yamada (HY)

HY: It is August 5, 1999. This is the second session with Harne Mc Vay. We are in her office at UH [University of Hawai 'i] in the art department and the interviewer is Holly Yamada.

I think last time we left off-well we want to bring you back to Hawai'i-you were talking

about your Ohio days, and so maybe you can talk about coming back to Hawai 'i then after

you got your degree.

HM: Yes, did I mention I started a business? I think I did.

HY: No, I think that was the first time I met you so we need to have that part on tape. So maybe

you could talk about that.

HM: For a year I had a ceramics supply business. I made my own glazes because there was

nothing like that available here. I made glazes for the temperature that was being fired

around here. In those days it was all low temperature, around cone-06. All the schools, if

they had ceramics, [fired to] cone-06.

But in a year's time, I was hired by the university to teach part-time. So I came back to the

university and started as a lecturer, and I taught not only ceramics but I taught design. I

forget what year, but I did start teaching weaving because that was my minor. So when they

needed a second teacher in weaving I helped out. But the art department in those days only

had one faculty member per program, and I guess I was the first one to be a second member

of a program. And I was hired at the same time as Sueko Kimura, who taught drawing and

painting, but I think she started also as a lecturer, but in drawing and painting. We shared an

office with Hester Robinson who was the weaver. Three of us in a tiny little cubicle and we

shared the desk, but it was really fun. We bonded because we were so close and we knew all

the problems that were coming up every day and we could solve them immediately because

we were right there. You could communicate very easily.

I long for those days because now we're all separated in bigger places, bigger offices, which

is wonderful but you really don't communicate with your fellow faculty members when you

should. I think there should be certain times at certain hours when everybody should be

available for consultations for discussions. We've lost that because we're so big now. Every

program has their own problems and they just stick to their own programs to try to solve

their own programs. But you should be solving your problems with everyone else knowing

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what your problems are so that you can balance your department. You just don't take care of

your own program and sort of take off by yourself. I think that has been happening and that's the beginning of conflict and all the ego problems. But I think if we could talk more together this kind of thing can be solved and would be very beneficial for the students and for the faculty to know what's going on in the whole department. And if someone is really in trouble, you can help that department or that program. But I suppose this could be a

university-wide attitude. But anyway it's not that way and I don't think it's going to change.

HY: Maybe before we get into more details about UH, I can just ask you a little bit more about your business. How is it that you started up your business?

HM: Well when I first came home, there were no jobs available, although, I was asked to go to Ponape [Pohnpei, Micronesia] to do a revival of ceramics in that area or for that one community in Ponape, and of course I jumped at the chance because it was a trip and a new place. The people here were excited because they found someone who could do the job, but there was no follow-up. I gave it up because there was no communication, but years later I found out that they found out I was Japanese. And because the Japanese occupied that island they had a little problem there, and I don't know what the problems are. Although today I know that there are many people there who are fathered by Japanese soldiers. But when the war ended the men went back to Japan alone. Although the women were invited, women and children, the women and children were advised that in Japan they will not be accepted. So they chose not to go, which I think was wise. So they lived out their lives without their fathers. But maybe there was animosity. I don't know what the reason was but I do know that happened. Anyway, they didn't want me but they didn't have the guts to tell me that. So I guess they didn't do anything. They didn't hire anyone.

Years later one of our students (David Vitarelli) went there to start that program, maybe thirty years, twenty-five years. But he went there and he was a big hit. Then he was a conscientious objector and that's why they sent him there. The American government sent him there to start this program and he did a good job. When he finished there he went on to Japan and he was a big success in Mashiko where [Shoji] Hamada is the king [of pottery]. He was next door to Hamada at [Tatsuzo] Shimaoka's place, and he's another very famous potter today. But he was our student and he did wonders. But now he's home. He's been home for a long time. Hawai 'i is home although they were gone for so long. He lives on Maui and I don't think he's doing pottery. But his sister, Sandy [Vitarelli], is a potter on Maui near Makawao.

HY: Ha'iku?

HM: Ha 'iku. And I believe she is pretty well known here in Hawai 'i.

HY: So that fell through and you did your business instead.

HM: Yeah. I had to do something so I borrowed some money and started this business. I imported

all the raw materials. In the basement of our house I was mixing, weighing out, mixing glazes, and then I would call up the schools and tell them what was available. Of course they were so happy because most of these teachers didn't know anything about the clay and glazes. So I was able to help them and I delivered-took the stuff to the school. So the teachers here were quite happy. I did very well.

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HY: Did you have a staff then to help?

HM: No, (chuckles) no.

HY: It [was] just a one-person operation?

HM: It was me.

HY: And did you work out of your home?

HM: Yeah the basement of our house and it was strictly by phone.

HY: This is the house on [Kalakaua] still?

HM: Yeah Kalakaua, near Fern. Then when I got hired by the university I stopped that business because I could see I couldn't do both. But I paid back all my debts. I made out pretty well, and then I started teaching and I've been here ever since.

HY: Well now you were talking about the closeness of the three of you-the three women. So You were saying the atmosphere was quite cozy.

HM: Yeah, right and we knew each other's art department problems and what we were doing to build it, because that was our job, to build the department. Because during the war years the whole university, I believe, just shut down. And the chairman of the art department, before they shut down, was Hue Luquiens, a very good artist. But when it reopened Ben Norris was asked to take over and he did a fantastic job.

He's still alive, living in New York. He was one of the best people you could have found for

this job because his PR [public relations] was excellent. First of all he's an excellent artist, so he could judge the work of other artists as he started to hire. In those days the procedure was

very different. It was kind of carte blanche for him to find the right person and hire them. Today you have to advertise for so many months and it has to be nationwide or even internationally [advertised] sometimes. But anyway, it has to be done very carefully now. But he hired people he knew. Eventually he got to know them if he didn't know by bringing them in as guest artists, and if he didn't want to hire that person or that person didn't want to become teachers in a university, at least they knew people they respected who they felt they could recommend. And in that system, he found a lot of the people he hired that way I believe.

Well anyway, we had fantastic visiting professors, top of the line, it was incredible. The

whole community was involved. The whole community wanted to be part of these people

coming here. And they hosted parties for them. It was really very nice.

HY: Did they have art showings?

HM: Yes, and they took care of that. They all wanted to be the host or hostess for these people. Many of them stayed with families-very elegant homes. It worked out very well. We had very famous people and they're in all the art books today. Ben didn't fool around, he just went to the top for visiting people. Today of course you can't afford people like that. We try real hard but just no money there.

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HY: Was the university funding these visits?

HM: Oh yeah. They got paid. In those days, I guess the artists weren't greedy because they came for whatever the pay was. They'd come for a semester. They came for a long time, not just two days, a weekend, or even a week or a summer workshop. They came for the whole semester so the students really could adjust to them and learn their style of teaching so that they can get the most out of the people. Today we have these short weekends, and it's so hard on people who aren't used to that style of teaching. And once you get state funding to help pay for these workshop people, you have to open your doors. Everybody is eligible.

And you better believe there are lots of people who sign up thinking that suddenly they're going to become artists. But they haven't had too much of a background of this kind of exploratory teaching. So they suffer. They don't get as much out of it and then they complain. But once you're into understanding that these people are brought in to help you recognize another way of using your eyes-that these people have-it's easy. Students catch on real fast because we're giving them this already through this whole art department system.

Today we try to bring in good people, and they're coming. But it's harder, a lot harder. In the old days the students didn't participate so much in the selecting of who's coming because they didn't know. We were so isolated. Today it's a little different. The kids read magazines. They see TV shows. You know who all the top people are. And they will ask, "Can we bring in," so-and-so? And then we try. So that's good. That part is good. Today our students are very mobile. They take trips and they visit museums. Until recently this wasn't true. The students were so poor a lot of them never left O'ahu. They didn't see other islands. In fact I had one student who told me about being born in Pawa'a, which is near where I was. We talked a lot about those old days. Then one day he told me that he went once on a trip on a train. I said, "Where, on this island?" Yeah on this island. So I know there's only one train station, Downtown. So I said, "Where was it?"

He says, "We went to paradise."

I go, "A place called Paradise?"

No, no, no. "It wasn't called Paradise, but it was. It was the most beautiful place in the world."

And I'm going, "On this island?"

He says, "Yes!"

So I said, "I'll find out where this is. Keep talking." I said, "You got on the train and you

went towards the sunset right?"

He says, "Yeah and it was a long trip, very long." But it was the same day that they got there.

I finally pinpointed it just by talking to him and his descriptions of things he saw along the

way that this was Hale'iwa. I was ready to put him in my car and take him there because he says he'll never forget that place. He went there once only. I had experiences like that.

Another interesting experience was, I was advising students once not too long ago, and I had

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a student, and I was going through his first page which said his name and when he was born and I saw he was born on December 7, and I stopped. I said, "My God! You were born December 7. What time of day was it?" And he's looking at me, he says he didn't know what time of day.

He asked me, "Why do you ask me questions like that?" I said that's December 7, 1941. And he says, "So?" He didn't know what happened on that day and he's a local boy. I guess it was such a traumatic thing for his mother, she never really talked about it. Interesting, you know very interesting.

HY: Well then talking about your students-maybe you can talk about from when you were a student, and then now you're at UH, first as a lecturer, and maybe you can compare students from that time?

HM: Yes. When we were students we were all very docile quiet people, and if you said jump, we jumped. That' s how we were brought up. We never questioned authority, especially teachers. I mean the teacher was number one in our culture, the Japanese culture in Japan. My mother comes from a family that was totally education oriented. Whatever the teacher said you did it. That was the law. I think a lot of kids grew up like that. You never questioned teachers. So we were lumps. We just sat there and took notes and we never- I mean we took everything [at face value,] whatever the teacher is saying has to be right. We were good students. I think a lot of us made very good grades. But the professors, most of who came from the Mainland, were frustrated because we didn't exchange ideas during the class time. Well, no way would anybody put their hand up and ask a question. If the teacher would bring up a subject for the rest of us to think about and answer or discuss, he couldn't get anybody to raise a hand, nobody. So they were very frustrated. But today, and this was a gradual thing, I think our generation raised kids who were more open with their ideas. They were able to discuss without shame. If you end up being on the wrong side because you were wrong or something, you can still say, well, but that was a discussion. So in a classroom situation you can have debates where you could be on the losing side. It was no problem. But in those days you couldn' t do that.

HY: Now when you first started it's still in the [19]50s, do you think the students in that time had gone through somewhat of this transition?

HM: Yes definitely. When I first started teaching they even dressed differently. I mean the girls from next door--we were right here. We were in a small building; ceramics was right next to home economics. In those days home economics and the college of education students had to take at least one art course as part of their requirements. They took 101, I believe, the general art course. We [the teachers] all demonstrated something in this course. Ben [Norris] was so clever. I used to go to the amphitheater- [Claude] Horan and I would take the wheel, and he would be making something and I would be doing something on the wheel, too. And when they see that they want to take a course. The same with the painting. The same with the weaving. Well anyway, we had a lot of the home economics girls and the teacher's college girls. In those days they were almost required to dress in a certain way and it was kind of prevalent in the university that you wear heels. Not fancy heels but definitely shoes- not sandals- real shoes and a dress. Very few people wore pants, very few. I heard stories about the earlier days, and I'm sure you can get stories about them from somebody else, but I won' t say anything because I wasn' t there. But it was very strict. The dress code was incredible. But here in Hawai'i it was bound to end up like this because of our weather. Our

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morays are very different now-you can expose more skin. It's more comfortable, all that

stuff.

HY: Did you find that most of your students were females then?

HM: Yes a lot of them were females but we had a lot of men, too. They came and they were­geez where did they come from?-they came from all over, the whole university. But the girls were mostly from teacher's college and home economics.

HY: Did your students tend to be people from Hawai'i?

HM: Oh yes.

HY: Were you one of the-were you the only Hawai 'i person that was on the staff at that time?

HM: Yes, Sue [Sueko Kimura] and myself. Sueko grew up on another island I think.

HY: Did you find that helpful, or not helpful, that you were from here, in your relationship with the students?

HM: Absolutely, it was so helpful and actually they kind of trusted me that I wouldn't do anything

to make things more difficult or trick them into getting a lower grade. There are exams that are kind of tricky-they kind of felt that I wouldn't do this to them. I found that it was

helpful. I was so young when I started teaching. My big problem was they didn't know who the teacher was. First day of school was always hard because I'd walk into the class and

everybody is talking and I walk in and they're still talking, even though I'm in the front of the class. I had to finally calm them down and say, "I am your teacher!" and their jaws

would drop. (Chuckles) That was kind of fun.

HY: And what about the administration, the relationship of the administration to the art department at that time?

HM: They were very helpful because the university was growing and they're going to help you

grow and they want you to have good teachers. One of the things that I thought was pretty

good, was the first semester I taught, almost near the end of the semester, the dean of faculty came and told me I have to leave the room today because he's going to take over the class and talk to the class. Well I didn't know what that was all about. But that was reviewing my

ability to teach, and the best way is to ask the students about the communication and all that.

There are other things involved in teaching, too, but I think if you're going to ask the

students you can get a clue about a whole bunch of other things, too. Anyway, he'd come in

and ask the students-and I had like forty-three students in a small regular classroom, maybe

it was three times this size, but anyway it was a small room, very little if you wanted to do

something big, which nobody really wanted to do. Everybody stayed fairly small, where you

don't have to go find extra space, because they wanted to work together. But he came in and

he would talk to everybody about my performance, whether they could understand

everything I said, and if they didn't, did [the teacher] clarify it? All that stuff. I was very

lucky because I came through with flying colors. The kids were very good about evaluating

me.

HY: So now they have written evaluations. Were they oral evaluations?

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HM: They were oral with this person (the dean of faculty). He didn't know who I was, and the kids didn't know who he was. He never wrote names or anything so they could all speak up.

That's the one time they did speak up evidently, during these faculty evaluations by the dean. The dean was one of these real easygoing-he looked like a Saint Bernard-kind looking

person they could really open up to. So that was good.

HY: Who was the dean then?

HM: He was Dean [Bruce] White, the first year I taught. In those days, if you didn't do well-I've

heard stories about people who fell down in certain areas, then if there was someone in your

department who could help you overcome that they would help you. Instead of firing you

they would help you, give you another chance at it so you can improve in that area, because

nobody teaches you how to teach. Although to me that's a lifelong experience, teaching,

because you are being taught every day, especially when you start school, you have a good teacher or a bad teacher. I used to tell myself, if I ever become a teacher I'll never do what she's doing or he's doing, and I think that's a terrible thing they're doing. But I have to remind our students that when you see people teaching, are you observing how they're

teaching? Is it working with you? That's a good way to evaluate your faculty also. You learn what they were trying to teach.

HY: So you were part-time?

HM: Yes for about a year.

HY: And then you were on tenure track after that?

HM: Yes.

HY: So this is in about 1953, I would say.

HM: Yeah, I started in 1952 I guess. I don't know how the years went by so fast. It just flew. In

those days there was no maternity leave. I had to quit my job to have my son in 1954. Then

luckily I got rehired.

HY: Now were you rehired in your same position then?

HM: Yes. Then my second child, seven years later, I had to quit again. But luckily they wanted

me back. In fact they brought me back in sooner than the first time. The first time I'm new

mother. I had to learn so much that I just stayed at home as long as I could. And they let me, which is good. Then my daughter was born seven years later but I came back to work a little

bit earlier. Lucky I have a sister who baby-sat because she had two kids to sit. So it was all in

the family. I had another sister who had a small boy also. She had a little kindergarten going

there in the house in Kalakaua.

Today the students are very vocal, and this was a gradual thing. I think a lot of it was

because we were getting Mainland students. That was a wonderful thing that happened here

and I think we should do more of this, bring in more outside students from the Mainland. We get lots of Asians but they're like us. They're hardworking, excellent students, very

intelligent but the Mainland student talks, they talk. This is where our students learn that this

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is our competition. I better be as good as they are. They start to talk. I think this is so good. Also you exchange ideas about the Mainland and you might experience that again later. Whereas the Asian students bring a different culture, which is great. You should be involved in that, too. But many of our students don't use that later on in life, but at least they know something about it. We should have more exchange of culture like that. I think UH is doing a good job in that area.

The heyday of this was when the East-West Center was born. That was spectacular. It was

really good. We had a whole bunch of students from Japan, China, Korea, but I think the

Japanese students really benefited. We do bring in students from the other Asian countries but the other Asian countries have a problem. I remember the man who screened the Fulbright scholars had a real problem because he was screening only very wealthy people, because they're the only ones who get through college education. They were going for a

Ph.D. So to even get a master's degree, you had to be way up there and come from a family who understood all this. So they were educated already. So he wanted to bring in different classes of people but they just weren't there. They didn't qualify. This kind of stuff is interesting for us to learn. You think you can go there and find somebody from every class, but this isn't true. They just don't go to school. They're too poor. The ones we get here are very wealthy, especially from some countries. Japan you know, everybody gets educated, so it's possible to bring in people of different classes.

But that, for me, was an education to have an East-West Center student, because they

required a little more attention. But in the process I gained more, I think, in helping these people adjust to our culture. I'm still in touch with some of them, especially this one in Thailand. And his student has come here and not necessarily in our university but there is a Sanit Kuehok and he is an artist here and he is Thai. So I asked him if he knew Sermsak Narkbua. And he says, "He was my teacher." So I'm beginning to run into this. I guess over there you can teach forever as long as you're able. Because I am sure he is over sixty-five

now, or very close.

He was a wonderful student. He had a little problem with English but we understood him. Horan and I had no problem. It was kind of charming, his misuse of some words and his

pronunciation was just hilarious at times. And we helped him along those lines but he didn't

need to continue to take that English as a second language [class] because he wanted to spend time in ceramics. And yet he had to wash up, put things away and then go to this class. So pretty soon he's not going [to English as a second language class] and then we get calls from the program saying, "He needs to be in this class! He needs this!" Well we knew he

didn't need it because we were doing okay. The fact is we knew he was going right back to Chulalongkorn University to teach there and they teach in Thai.

When I went to visit him about ten years later, his English was the same. It didn't improve

but that's because-in fact I told my husband it's amazing he didn't lose it all because he

doesn't use his English at all. So we had a great time with Sermsak. I learned a lot about

Thailand and he was terrific about blending in here and he took a trip all over the Mainland

to study the art departments of these Mainland university art departments. And he went back

[to Thailand], and when I visited him, he took me into the main office, which is where the

whole art department faculty were. They were in one room. Actually this is good, again, as

I'm saying, you can communicate. Although you should have a place to retreat. It would be nice. But they just have that and they have one telephone in the middle of the room. No extraneous phone calls [are allowed]. It was just strictly business. So I asked him, "Where's

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your desk?"

He says, "I'm not in here. I have my own office."

So I said, "Show me." So we went out into a courtyard which is beautifully landscaped, small one, and he went up these stairs and he had an apartment office. I go, "So who else uses this?"

He says, ''This is mine." And he had a little conference room, his own bath and his own telephone.

I'm going, "How come you-I see older people down there-how come you get all this?"

He tells me, "Because I have an East-West Center American diploma." So it was a big deal, a really big deal.

So now we have a student here from Thailand and she's getting a Ph.D. in something else, anthropology I believe. But she's not going back to Thailand because she met someone. She says, "No I think I'm going to make Hawai'i my home." Which is okay, no problem, but if that gal goes back there, she might be the only female in the department and she could be queen of the whole place. But anyway she doesn't want that. Interesting.

But Sermsak did very well. He owns his own property just south of Bangkok. He had a little button business going. He had about ten ladies from the neighborhood who came and put clay into a slab of molds and they were making buttons. Then they'd fire it and then they'd glaze it and then they'd fire it again. And there's another group putting them on cards. I said, "Where do you sell these?"

He says, "In Switzerland." That was his sole (distributor) they want everything he made. Interesting.

I asked him, "Who handles your stuff in America?"

He says, "I don't know what they do with it. They might distribute from there." He says, "I only have one place to send," which is wonderful for him. Everything he makes he packs up and sends to Switzerland.

HY: Now did you find that a lot of your students are able to get work in the arena of art in some way?

HM: In the old days they did. If they chose to teach-a lot of them didn't want to-but if they chose to teach they [ could], especially if they were from foreign countries. Although in America there are people teaching in Oregon, in Texas, (Corpus Christie). Not too many but there are.

HY: Was it easier to place students then or now? Not that it's your job to place them, but did you find that ....

HM: If they wanted it, they could find it because jobs were available. In fact art was just kind of blooming in the universities. They had maybe oil painting-drawing and oil painting might

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have been it in many art departments-but as they started to do sculpture and fiber or

weaving, there were jobs beginning to open. All these first teachers are famous today all over the country. They're all dying off now. Most of them are dead actually. Like Claude's teacher died a few years ago but he was an early one. And where I went to school at Ohio,

Binns, who had written (ceramic) books, he was already dead. But the others were almost there. I mean they were a very old faculty. But they were famous, very famous.

HY: What about now days? Are there jobs for students now in art?

HM: No, there's no art jobs. A few lucky ones get in, but my advice to them is take any job. At

least keep making art if that's what you want, if you want to make art. Because once you

stop, chances are you won't go back into it.

Although I do have one student who stopped making art, but she knew she was an artist no matter what she was doing. And she became the top in her (furniture) sales area and today

she's an executive, but she's making art. I keep telling her, "Don't quit your day job." That's where she's going to make her millions and it's going to free her to do art. I just saw her recently and we did some glasswork together. But she's one of the few people who did very well in something else. But it's because they were creative.

She keeps telling me, ''The world is my studio." And that's a good attitude. She's the one that I think, the first year away from home, she was in New York in a small apartment and nowhere to work in clay. She got her master's degree here in ceramics and she couldn't

afford any of these places where she could work-she had to pay a fee. But one day, it was

after Christmas, she saw all these Christmas trees-maybe I mentioned this already-she saw all these Christmas trees tossed out. Everybody had a Christmas tree to throw out. And

she got this bright idea. She bought a saw and cut off all the branches nicely in a certain way

and she made this very tall structure using something, wire, cord or both. And she won a

prize at the Brooklyn Museum at their annual open show. That kind of gave her hope that

hey I don't need a studio, I'll just keep working like this. But her job got busier and busier so

she quit doing it. But now I hear-my son stays with her (when he goes there on business).

Somehow they met and they became very close friends. That's why he was at her house just recently with her husband. My son says, "You should see her studio. It's wall-to-wall [art]

on the floor." She's back into it again and doing spectacular work. They're kind of like

mandalas, and as soon as she's ready to exhibit she has to find a gallery. So I told her to stay in New York, have a show in New York first because that will give you clout. To have a

show in New York would be great.

Anyway we do have students who have placed well. Another one went to University of

North Carolina in Chapel Hill and he just retired. Boy I can't think of everybody but over the

years ...

HY: But you do occasionally [place art students].

HM: Yeah. These are the first ones who wanted to teach, but we've had many students since then

who chose not to teach. But they are still doing art. Some started teaching and then they quit

along the way because they felt that that was not their calling. They'd rather be something else or do ceramics or their art in another kind of way, which is fine because teaching isn't for everybody. It's almost like any other profession. If you going to enjoy it, you have to almost be called into it, or fall into it in such a way that it becomes something that's

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pleasurable.

HY: Maybe you could talk about the growth of this department from the old days over at Hawai 'i

Hall.

HM: We were really cramped in Hawai'i Hall so we started expanding as the students came. We

were once in Varsity Theatre. We had two 101 classes. One just filled the whole theater so we had to open a second section. That's the kind of numbers we had. Our print making

moved to Puck's Alley, the first building that was there, and it was a terrible situation. They

didn't have enough exhaust and it was very toxic situation. Thank God that one's over. Then

they used to walk from Puck's Alley to ceramics, which was way up behind the Korean

Center. That's where we were next. We moved up there.

Then one student fell through the floor of this building-it was a wooden barracks building. This lady came from the Midwest for her sabbatical year and one day I just happened to walk into that front room and this woman was throwing right near the entrance at the first treadle wheel. I was looking right at her and she went right through the floor, straight down and she

disappeared. It's a barracks building and it's about this high off the ground. She was standing down there. So when that happened they said, "Okay, we have to move you."

(Laughter)

HM: So they put us in another junk building that was full of termites but at least it had a cement floor. It was on a slope but they made these flat places for the wheel. We were there for years. But we had some really great students.

We started glass up there. Horan went on sabbatical, learned glass at San Jose, came back and just started building the equipment himself from stuff he would gather. Because we had no money, the department had no money, to start a new program. He did it all with found

scrap metal and found objects. It was hysterical. But anyway he got it going and we all blew glass before we had our first classes. We all blew glass. Taught everybody how to blow

glass.

HY: This is the faculty?

HM: The faculty. By then we had hired Suzanne (Wolfe) and Frank Beaver. So there were one,

two, three, four and then we had some advanced students-the graduate faculty, not faculty,

graduate students, those who wanted to learn. He would teach them all so that we learned

how to operate this system and we were also experimenting with the glass. We were buying

glass marbles by the fifty-gallon drum from a company on the East Coast. Today they're

using just window panes. See now the technology is such that you can handle stuff like that.

Claude didn't have that.

HY: Let me interrupt you so we can tum this over.

END OF SIDE ONE

SIDE TWO

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HY: Okay.

HM: So Claude just started this program in a way that was exactly like what he had experienced at San Jose. And they were using these marbles, he ordered those things. He had to buy all the tools. We didn't have blowpipes in America in those days, so we had to order it from

Germany and it was too long a wait and very expensive. I think one blowpipe was forty

dollars and that was a lot of money in those days. So he got his friend, [Norman] Dunmire,

who was teaching at Kaimuki High School in the shop, to build us these blowpipes. He

would use the lathe to make these beautiful blowpipes and he would weld on the tips. That's

what we used. Of course the punty was easier-that's what you [use to] transfer the glass

piece onto a pipe that doesn't have a hole in it when you want to (work that side of the piece). You still have to go back in the furnace with something to keep you away from the fire.

Well anyway, we started glass up there and finally-and we had to sign papers saying we would never go upstairs because that floor was worse than this floor. But the kids were going up there. They would store all their junk up there. In fact some people were using it to make

art up there because it was one huge space. It was full of holes. Just lots of open-you could see right through. But we weren't supposed to go up there. Finally that got so bad that it was time to build a building for the art department. We started with this space that is now where

the post office is, behind Hemenway Hall. We were so excited. Murray Turnbull was chairman then and he just-I don't know if he did this in total ignorance or if whether he

thought he could get away with this, but he just went and got his own architect. He went to

get the man who designed the Yale art building. I can't remember his name, but he's world

famous. He came and he drew up two plans. If he had built that building, it would've been

remodeled and redone very shortly. Because in concept it was very new and exciting, but totally impractical. It had no walls. Eh, give me a break. You have to have some way­

otherwise you just say, ''This is an open university. Anybody can come and just join a class." How're you going to keep people out? Because you need continuity when you develop an

idea in a class. You don't have new people in. You got to teach them again, over and over

every day that this doesn't work. But he had this idea that you don't need walls, maybe just

one wall for storage, but everything else should be open. And he designed this. It was a very

interesting building. The airspace-he protected all the space with walls on the mauka side.

But it had lots of airflow through slots between the floors so you could control the air. But if

you leave everything open, of course, the rain would come in. So that was very clever. I

think you can still do that with any building. And you shouldn't have a building like Moore Hall, which is totally sealed. When the electricity goes off, you have to evacuate the whole

building. Buildings like that should never be built in anyplace. You should have something

that (can) open up. Well anyway, we moved into this glorious building. Although it's not as

glorious as we thought it would be. By the time they built the building, the money was

running out.

HY: Are you talking about the current building?

HM: This building, yes. This building was fantastic when it was first designed, but.

HY: So how long were you at this old post office site?

HM: We never got ...

47

HY: Oh, it [was just] that you were planning [for the post office site].

HM: Who was the governor? Whoever the governor was ...

HY: Was it [John] Burns?

HM: It was probably Burns. But President Johnson at one point said, "The whole country will

have to tighten their belts and we're going to cut all kinds of budgets." And Burns used this

as an excuse to cut our plans for a new art building. So that was just totally shelved. We

weren't going to even have a building, and we were very disappointed. But no building,

forget it. So finally, years later, they [administrators] said we can think about a building.

They gave us the corner of the East-West Center Road as you enter but they forgot to check

who owned that (site). East-West Center owns that land. So they actually designed the art

building for that corner. I mean this is lots of money involved, all those draftsmen working. They actually designed this thing, and finally they were told, "You can't have that." So we

had to back off and they gave us this [current site]. But Gilmore Hall was here and Beatrice

Krauss said, "That's my father's building. You're not going to tear my father's building

down." So for years it was put off. Big debate on campus. We won of course, although she

did keep the pineapple institute place. But Gilmore Hall was torn down. That was a very nice

building though. Really, I liked that building. We used to see it every day. In fact I kind of

miss that. It was a beautiful building. But anyway we kind of took over this space.

But talking about that second building we were in ...

HY: Up by the Korean Center.

HM: Yeah right. Our enrollment just went crazy and they put sculpture next door in a big Quonset

hut, one of the large Quonset huts. And that was okay. We were next door. We had so many

graduate students in those days. We had to have a cottage-they brought a cottage and put it

in between us, and they tore out everything inside. I think there was one sink, but it was very

inconvenient. One sink, and all these people with all these makeshift tabletops. But hey,

those kids had a good time because they were all by themselves in there. They could turn

their radio on. They had a good time but they also did lots of good work. We had a Filipino

[student] from the East-West Center, Filipino from Manila. We were terrified for a while

because he was anti-Marcos and [Ferdinand] Marcos was in his heyday. He used to do giant

portraits of Marcos: the idiot who's dribbling and little bit cross-eyed and deranged looking.

He did a whole bunch of these and then he was reported to the government evidently. So he

was being threatened and we stayed out of it totally. But we heard stories about [how] his

life was in danger for a while. Then the students all said, "We don't want to be gunned down

with him!" (Laughs) So we had incidents like that, very interesting. He was going to Europe

because he couldn't go home to Manila, and that's the last we heard of him. Nothing since

then. Maybe they got him, who knows? Not a word. Nothing.

HY: Who was this?

HM: Manuel was his first name but I can't think of his last name.

HY: That's okay. And so you said the enrollment was really big at that time.

48

HM: Oh it was incredible, incredible. We had people on waiting lists for ceramics and the last day of registration you see a bunch of them on their knees. They're so cute. "Please! I'm in my last semester. I've got to get one class." So we tried to accommodate them. Actually from the very beginning, we had a bunch of ladies from the community-one dentist's wife, two doctor's wives. They were all ladies who had leisure time and they came and took a course and just loved it. And they came back. Attorney's wives-came back over and over. In those days there was no limit because we had space-the first building we were in, the barracks building. But they were wonderful because whenever they saw that we needed something badly, they would give us some money, put it in the foundation or whatever for us to go buy

some more kiln shelves. They really helped us out. When we had the potlucks they fed us. They used to invite us home, to these gorgeous homes. When we had visiting professors, they would be the host or hostess. They were wonderful, really, truly. They supported us. They bought our art. They were making it, but they really financially helped the students as well.

HY: What era are we talking about?

HM: The [19]50s, [19]60s.

HY: So these are wives of ...

HM: Community, wealthy people.

HY: ... wealthy people that are interested in art.

HM: You'd be surprised how talented they were, architect's wives. Some came and went, but there was a core that just kept coming back. And we let them. But then when they [the students) were on their knees begging to come in, we couldn't very well keep these ladies

because they weren't even getting degrees. So we had to ask them to leave. Well they were very upset, oh very upset-hurt mostly. So what we did is, a new teacher-this is before

Suzanne [Wolfe] and Frank [Beaver)-volunteered to build a kiln for them if they would just find the space. So the ladies got real busy and they inquired and they found this space up here under the freeway. I don't know why more people aren't allowed to do this.

HY: You mean over by Church of the Crossroads?

HM: Yes, right. There's a big ceramic place there. It's a private kind of operation, although they do open it for classes to anybody. But it's run by a group of people. They pool their money to buy supplies and buy the gas for the firings and all that. And the church gets some. They're using some church facilities too, so they pay the church something. They've spent a

lot of money fencing the place and improving the place a little bit. But not much. It's very

depressing for me to go there. Like it's just dirt floor, which is okay, and it's not totally secure. I was in there one morning very early and someone came in-I had a key to the place-and somebody came in right behind me and I had to leave because this person didn't

look familiar at all. I don't know who goes there and he wouldn't talk to me. I started to ask him questions and he just clammed up. So [I thought that] I'd better get out of here because

it's quite early. So it's stuff like that can happen in a place like that.

Anyway they built this kiln. Next you needed money to buy bricks, high-fire bricks to build a

kiln. My husband was with the Campbell Estate then, and he was able to talk to the O'ahu

49

Sugar Company and found out that they were rebuilding their boiler-all fire brick. So we

were allowed to go in there and take all the bricks we wanted. There's a lot of brick that's

almost like new. So on weekends we would all get together, students also helped. And these ladies-you should have seen these elegant ladies come out of there all black because it was

very sooty. There's a bag wall right inside where they stoke the boiler, and this is a free­

standing wall. So this is the one we wanted because it's easy to break down without anything

falling down on you, because it's not load bearing. So we went in for that, and that's covered

with soot. It was easy to break down and haul [bricks] out of there, but it was filthy. Just so

black. I have a picture of all of us at the end of one day. It took several weekends to get all

that stuff. They [O'ahu Sugar Company] were out of there so we could take our time. They

had a new, fancy, computerized boiler. So they wanted to get rid of this. But I have a picture

of everybody. Everybody's black. We had everybody smile so all their white teeth are

showing. Real fun times. We fixed lunch and we had a real good time. We helped them build

this kiln, big kiln. Since then it's been rebuilt several times.

HY: So do you feel like these women are actually responsible for the buildup of the program to

some extent?

HM: They helped a great deal I think. They were always there for us and they were wonderful

company.

HY: This is a group of about how many people?

HM: Maybe about ten.

HY: Do you remember some of their names?

HM: Oh yes, I'm still their friends.

HY: Who, like who?

HM: Well some are dead now, like Eleanor Cooper passed away. She was Dr. [John W.] Cooper's

wife. Wonderful lady, good cook. Her husband grew a lot of vegetables at home, and fruit.

She always brought boxes for everybody. Mrs. Nishi, she died a few years ago, Ellen Nishi.

She was another one. She ended up building a kiln at home. But she was still a member of

this church group. They're called Hawai'i Potters, I think, Hawai'i Potters. Mrs. [Edith]

Carlsmith, her husband was an attorney. She's alive I believe. She's still around. Daisy

Kurashige, May Chee .... There's another Chinese doctor's [wife]-Dorris Yee. Right now

I can't think of them. Maybe there's more than ten actually. But over the years there were a

whole bunch of others who came and went, who supported us also. They had to do other

things, but they stayed for a number of years. Wonderful group, wonderful, wonderful group.

I feel very grateful to them. They were a good moral support. In the community, when we

had exhibitions and student art shows, they were there. They would buy the students stuff. It

was a positive support for the students. It was really terrific, really terrific.

HY: Is there anything like that--a relationship with the community members-now?

HM: Not really.

HY: Was that unique to that time?

50

HY: You know why? Because our programs are so tight. You have to be a degree-seeking person to be in the program. Most people like that don't want a degree. Because once you decide

you want a degree you got to go take these other courses. The whole art department courses

are formidable for these people. All these art history [courses] they have to take, [and] the drawing and painting. Our students are supposed to be well rounded, so actually they're prepared to teach. If you decide to teach, you will be able to teach. So that kind of person is sort of out.

HY: Now at some point you became department chair.

HM: Yeah for a very short time.

HY: When?

HM: I don't know. I really don't even remember the year. But it was a very short stint. I was pinch-hitting for Prithwish Neogy [i.e. appointed interim chair when Prithwish Neogy went

on sabbatical.] He was our chairman and he just wouldn't take no for an [answer]. I didn't want it.

HY: Maybe you could talk about-you obviously don't look fondly on that administrative position.

HM: Oh I hated every minute of it.

HY: Can you talk about why?

HM: At first it was kind of interesting to hear everybody's problems. Like their problem was the

most important. You could handle that at first. But pretty soon, it's just becomes

overwhelming. Pretty soon you looking at people like, you're so spoiled. You're so selfish.

You begin to understand where they're coming from and you're reacting very differently.

Before that I didn't know everything about where they're coming from, so I could listen

intently and respond and even empathize. But eventually you hear what's gone on before that

moment on this subject with that person and with other people. It became very unpleasant for

me.

HY: What were some of the issues that you had to deal with as an administrative person?

HM: People wanting more than their share of either budget or space or time or complaints about

certain students that we should handle. When you hear the other side of the story, you go,

"Oh my goodness. Maybe we should take care of the teacher. Reprimand the teacher." Well

when you get problems with your faculty it becomes very complicated because we have a

union that will protect them. Unless you rape somebody or kill somebody or commit some kind of grand theft, it's impossible to get rid of any faculty member. No way, no way. So how do you handle it? And the faculty member seems to know this. So they're very arrogant about any complaints from students.

HY: So UHPA [University of Hawai'i Professional Assembly] had already happened [in 1974] the faculty union?

51

-

HM: Oh yes.

HY: They were unionized by the time you became an administrator?

HM: Oh yes. We did have a university psychologist. Is there such a thing today?

HY: Yeah, I think.

HM: There is? There was one and some of our students used them. But we were told never to handle any psychiatric situations. Just refer it to them. But you have to make a statement as

to why you're doing this. Even that became suspect. And who the hell are you to make this judgment? But some things were so obvious to me. I had an older lady who came in as a

student, and obviously she was crazy. To get in you know. It's interesting.S he brought a box, a cigar box, full of sharp razor blades one day. I didn't know what she was going to do with this, and I had to watch her because we don't even need razor blades. But she had this open in front of her so all the rest of the people could see it. And she didn't talk to anybody. So I made a report that I didn't feel comfortable. Then I got scolded. Like why are you­how do you make this judgment? I said, "I'm not making any judgment. Could you handle

this situation? I'm just describing a situation." Because anything I say might be used against me. I learned this so early. I thought, hey, this is an unusual situation, why are they attacking

me now? But anyway, a couple things like that happened to me.

But the year I was chairman-not the year, was shorter than a year, but as Prithwish [Neogy] left for his sabbatical, he told me, "Okay, this box next to the desk is all the mail I've been getting." And this man, he's famous for his mailbox. We all have a slot this big in the office with our name on it and every day we check our mail. Everybody's box is empty except the

mail that got in since yesterday or the day before, because it'd come in every other day. His

was so full that the secretary had to make another pile in front and he wouldn't even pick it

up. So somebody would have to box it, tie it up and take it to his office. And he would dump it in this box. He never opened anything.

So I thought, well I'll go through this to see what kind of mail a chairman gets. So I went

through it, the whole thing, and I found the big brown envelope from the Ford Foundation. In

it was a request to apply for a grant. This was being offered to five universities. Fifty

thousand dollars for you to match and the due date was past. So I called this man up, our mentor. They had assigned a mentor out of New York and he was a business man in Texas,

somewhere in Texas. He was the nicest man. So I told him the situation. He says, "Oh my

goodness. By all means please apply." But he says, "I only can give you one week."

Well I have to find out how much it costs to run one square-foot of the art department. I

don't know how to do stuff like that. But luckily we had Gordon Mark in the front room of

the office. He was the assistant to the chairman. He says, "Let me handle it." He and Amy,

our secretary, worked night and day for a week filling out all these forms. They knew who to

call, the archives even. All kinds of stuff. And who were our former students. I had to list

them and we don't keep records like that. But Gordon called a whole bunch of people from

different time periods, got them to ask around. We finally end up with a presentation. I

couldn't believe it. So we did this. I wrote all the letters that had to go in. The best part was, how if you do get this grant, how would you spend it? See this is a very critical thing, getting the award. So I split it up in three ways. One third would go to the faculty for travel because they need to go look at the latest stuff wherever their interest is. The other third would go to

52

the student who never leaves Hawai 'i to go see some museums in big cities, wherever they want to go. The other third was for visiting faculty. Okay, three-way. Well they liked that.

We were one of the five that were selected. When I announced it to our faculty, they just sat there because it couldn't sink in that somebody was giving us something.

(Laughter)

HM: And they just sat there. So finally I got so upset. I said, "Isn't this an exciting thing? Aren't you guys happy we're going to make this money?" Well that was just the half of it because I did this without knowing that first you have to apply for a research permission, a grant

permission. I didn't know that. So I got this [grant] and the next morning there's a man sitting next to my desk waiting for me. So I went in and he says, "Mrs. Mc Vay, we have

something to talk about." He's this great big guy, a former officer in the army, but he was hired to be this man in the research center. He says, "I understand you just got a grant."

I said, "Yeah it's terrific. Now we just have to make plans to match it."

He says, "You must return it, this grant."

I said, "What?" And we went through all this, and I'm screaming at him. I said, "I got this grant and you tell me to return it."

He said, "Because you did not get permission. You first get your permission, then you can apply. But you're not going to just take this. You have to return it." Fujio Matsuda was [UH

President] at the time. [David] Contois was our dean. So I went to Contois after he left my

office. I told him, "Please help me. This man came and told me I have to return this." I said, "Before I go to the newspaper with this story, I want you to see if you can help me."

He heard the story and he started laughing. He says, "I told everybody, this is one office we

don't need." He says, "Our people can get grants without them." But I know why they have

this office. Because they want to control where the money is going to be raised. Which I

think is not too fair. But anyway I finally got a letter from Matsuda saying it's okay. Keep it.

But this was nerve racking because we almost lost it.

But then when we-was time to raise the money, I met with Don Mair [ of the UH

Foundation]. He was really good. He says, "Well don't forget that faculty can help raise this

money out of their own pockets." I thought that was brilliant because you getting double

your money. If you put half of it in, you're going to get double back. Well it took a long time for this to really sink in. Because again, they didn't believe this.

I said, "No, no, no. If you put half of the amount you want, you' re going to get the full

amount back." Well I finally got them aboard. All the faculty who were eligible did this.

They put in their share. And the students had all these sales. Then we made that [matching

funds] part.

HY: Selling artwork?

HM: Yeah. I think the university helped out a little bit. But also I think we did put in some money

from donations. So we finally made it. We had seven years to use up this money that we got.

So that was my contribution as chairman at the time. But when Prithwish came back, he

53

says, "Oh please continue. You're doing so well."

I said, "No way. I want go back to my work." Because I couldn't do that. I needed to be here. Because if you're chairman you cannot do anything else.

HY: So you didn't do any artwork?

HM: Oh not at all during that time. You're responsible for everything. The buck stops right there at your desk. I was there till late at night with the personnel committee because all the promotion, hiring, was done after hours. We couldn't find a common time when we could meet, so it was always after 5:00 and we went into the night. I said, ''This is not the kind of life for me because I have a family." We used to meet sometimes until 10:00 and somebody needs a ride. I had to drive people home, [someone who] used to live in Agee House [a cottage the art department used as a studio] up in the woods. I used to tell him it's pitch black. That's where all the thieves would drive up there to look through the purses they stole all night. So there's lot of bad people up there at the end of the road, up there in Ma] noa. So I tell him, "You stand right there until I can turn the car around."

He says, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." Well the minute he slams the door, he's running. He's scared too. I make sure everything's locked and I turn around, and you have to drive through this pitch-black dirt road back out. But I couldn't see him walking so I used to take him home. I was sure glad that thing ended.

HY: Maybe you can talk about hiring practices, what kinds of people the department looked for.

HM: Yeah, well by the time we were hiring, there was a search. You had to advertise in certain publications for three months I believe. Then you just have to wait for all the applications to come in. Then the personnel committee would go through it. That again is just so time consuming. And you have to narrow it down. Then the program gets involved. The final say could be the program, depending.

HY: Was there ever a push to hire different ethnic groups?

HM: Never, never. Not openly. Certainly not locals. In fact that was a no-no for the longest time.

Even married couples.

HY: You mean hiring both the husband and wife?

HM: Yeah, and there were situations. Well anyway, it could end up where one group might be favored, but the philosophy was always to hire new people from the outside so you don't end up with the same style of teaching, or mostly the same attitudes about teaching-that it's

good to have new blood. We tried. Except we did hire a few of our own graduates, which is absolutely not allowed. I don't know how these things happen, but we did end up hiring our

own graduates. I mean people who got their master's degree here. If you got your BA here and master's from someplace else you were eligible. But we hired our own master's candidates, which raised a few eyebrows at the time. And then (pause)

There were no applicants from the local source that I can remember. The plan was always to hire the best person for the job, someone who could work with the program, existing program, to expand it, and yet bring in a new fresh outlook. So the goals were always that.

54

HY: So after you returned to your teaching duties, after being chair, what-you resumed your ...

HM: Yes, back to teaching. We had lots of graduate students in those days. They're dwindling now but it was a busy time. When we're all busy it's fun. Everybody's working hard and new things are coming out. It's been a fun time really.

But as we moved into this new building, which ended up being terrible as we moved in because they had to cut back on everything. For instance, our throwing room downstairs has [treadle] wheels and they use water and it gets very filthy with clay. So we thought we would design like some other schools we've heard of-putting a pipe all around the building, under pressure. That we could turn on water and it would shoot into a long trench, out of the building, through that trench. You could just turn a valve and do that. Well they built us this trench but they cut out the water. They cut out the exhaust from it. So we ended up with this big trench in the room. Yet you had to use water because of the dust situation. So it would end up with some water standing in [the trench]. It was very hard to get rid of this water. The mosquitoes started breeding. So we ended up filling it, cementing the thing, but we had to do that ourselves. The students came in one weekend, and we found a dumpster full of bricks and we filled [the trench] with bricks and then cement. We had to seal it because it was unbearable. The mosquitoes were just breeding like crazy. A lot of things like that were cut. So it ended up being a building that wasn't what we designed.

So we moved in but it was a new building so we were just so happy. We came from this really terrible building. As we moved, we're finding all sorts of new ways of using our old equipment. I ran into Prithwish and he says to me, "Oh everybody looks so happy but actually this is a very sad day."

I said, "Why?"

He says, "Well this is the end. This is the end of how we used to be. This is going to be a

new way of existing."

I said, "Well I don't know what you're talking about."

He says, "You see now, we all have our own area. We're going to keep anybody that should not belong here out of here. You can't use my space. We're going to protect it from infiltration. We don't let anybody use our equipment. We're going to protect everything. So

we're going to have little empires in this building." He was right. Yep, that's how it ended up. Everybody's just looking out for their own problems, trying to improve just us. We don't care about anybody else. If you're not registered, you can't come in. You can't do any work

here. Of course there's a limit to letting anybody come in. But to me, if you're a registered art major, you should be allowed a little bit more freedom to move about within the whole

art department. Because eventually, they're going to have to be in this space. So they can come in a little earlier, I think, and see how it works. But it's not allowed. That's what

happens when you get big. As the faculty gets bigger it gets more and more like that. Big

isn't bad, but when they [the faculty] get older all together it's bad. They get burned out all

together. You have to have some on the bottom that's raring to go.

(Laughter)

55

HM: We don't have anybody like that. Even at Ohio when I was there, there was a low man on the totem pole. He was everybody's friend because everybody was free to go see him. All the rest were old and they just came when they had to, if they did. But he was always there and he was always working, either for the lab or for himself. He was always someone you could

watch or ask questions of. We don't have anybody like that now. Sure we have young people

who are teaching, but the commitment isn't there because they're not on tenured track. They just come to do their class and they're gone. So you have to have a range if possible.

HY: Do you think that the current situation is because of the hiring freeze?

HM: Oh yes, I bet, definitely. They didn't replace me. They could have had a young person when I left.

HY: Now what year did you retire in?

HM: [Nineteen] ninety-three.

HY: I wanted to ask you about your husband who was also an artist, or maybe he still is.

HM: He's a businessman.

HY: He is a businessman.

HM: Yeah.

HY: So how was it he ended up with Campbell Estate?

HM: Right, yeah, oh my goodness.

HY: I was just curious.

HM: He [had] a master's degree in art, but he worked very hard to learn the ropes of business Downtown. He came up here to business school at night, for years. I mean he sacrificed a lot

of his evenings to come to school. He had a lot of wonderful friends Downtown, older people who taught him about legalese, dealing with leaseholds all the time. He had to be the communication person with the legislature, so he knew all the legislators. He had long, long hours. But he used to tell me, "I have the best job in town."

HY: That you do, or he does?

HM: No he did. He says, "I have the best job in town. I'm out of the office most of the time,

talking to people all the time." When he finally became the manager-see before that he was

property manager, but when he became the manager (or CEO) of the estate, he called the

meetings of the trustees and ran the meetings, and then he delegated all the work after the

meetings and made sure they got done the way the trustees wanted it done. So he used to tell me, "I have the best job in the world." And he did. He had a good time. He eventually

became a trustee. Very few managers became trustees, but he was one of them. The family made the recommendation. They saw that you can't get someone more dedicated than this. But anyway when he retired he had the most incredible retirement parties. The staff down to the lowest [member] all just didn't want to see him go. They had fabulous parties for him.

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Then the San Francisco office invited the both of us up there for a big party. And again the same thing. They said, "Please don't go!" You know it was time.

Actually he started this business of you have to retire at age seventy. Because the earlier

trustees stayed on till they died, and a lot of them were not functioning. It was very

dangerous in those days because they used to get in their big cars and zoom Downtown from

say Nu'uanu [Avenue]. Lucky they didn't kill anybody on the way. They shouldn't even be driving. They'd sit in the office and start lighting their nose instead of the cigar. (Laughs)

They were totally out of it already and yet they were still getting their paycheck.

(Laughter)

HM: They had a little parking lot in the old Campbell building and he used to turn their cars

around for them and then head it out [in the right direction] and then they came out of this

narrow alley and there's this sidewalk. And you know if you were coming out of a situation like that you'd be terrified of the pedestrians. These guys don't even think. It's zoom! And they'd just luck out. There's nobody there.

(Laughter)

HM: He tells the most fantastic stories about those days and what used to happen in the boardroom. Well anyway he made this rule and he got it approved�verybody should retire

at age seventy. So when [he] was seventy he retired. And he's happy. He said, "Gosh, it's

wonderful to be retired-travel like crazy." He still has his ties, but he did have a great time, a great time at that job. I did too, actually. We both had good jobs.

HY: So since '93 you've been traveling and doing your artwork?

HM: Traveling a lot, yeah. But very little artwork because I've been traveling. I mean back-to­

back [travel] because this ain't going to last. Because I did have a scare-I got into a bad situation with my muscles and I think I know what happened. It's because what I did all my

life. I screwed up the fascia on all my muscles. They kind of adjusted to what I had been

doing-bad postures like standing on one foot throwing for hours, kicking with one and

standing with one foot.

HY: This is in a way an occupational hazard of being in ceramics?

HM: Yes, yes. I thought I was strengthening that leg that was kicking, and the one I'm standing on

has to get strong. No. All my muscles adjusted differently and just stayed that way. My shoulders also because you do this weird thing to get inside the piece. You're like that for a

long time and under stress too. Well I'm still suffering this. So I haven't thrown on a treadle

wheel, but a little on the electric wheel but it doesn't feel good. So I'm doing hand building

mostly now, which is fine. I prefer it now 'cause the ideas I'm getting. I don't need to use the

wheel, which is good. Eventually I may even switch to paper so I don't (laughing) have to

carry this heavy stuff. I can do that. I can use any material. It doesn't have to be clay. But it's

a shame not to use clay while I can. I do still have lots of clay to use up. Don't want to waste

it. What else?

HY: Do you want to say anything else about your career, your long career at UH here? Or the

state of art?

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HM: Well the art department has grown incredibly since I was here first. They've come and gone, a lot of faculty, a lot of students. We've had some magnificent students too along the way. Things are very different today. There's no bonding like we used to but it's impossible to do

it anymore anyway. It's too big. The students are much more self-sufficient today. They are very mobile. They're strong. They know what they want. Or if they don't know what they

want, they know where to go seeking different things. So that's good. They love to travel and they are traveling which is good. Amazing. I guess it's since World War II that people can

travel. The airfare is cheaper, a lot cheaper. I remember when I flew to San Francisco my (airfare was very high!)

END OF SIDE TWO

TAPE NO. 31-47-2-99; SIDE ONE

HM: In the early days when Claude first started this program, Claude Horan, he got it off on the right foot. He was a wonderful teacher and his standards were very high. He was a product of Ohio State University and before that it was San Jose. He had a business before he started teaching. But he started the program on a very high level. He didn't do any hobbyist-type approach no matter who came. His standards were always maintained. We were very fortunate that way because I know other places where they went through long periods of

hobbyist-type [approach to ceramics] and eventually they end up with high-fire and better

things.

Just as we were starting, all these famous potters from the Orient started coming out to

publicize their ware and their country. So that was an additional good thing for us. They had

very high, long standing standards. So having them as friends was also fabulous, just fabulous for all of us. Japan was of course the mecca of all potters at that time. I remember

when we first went to Mashiko, the town was so crowded you couldn't walk at your own pace. If you bought anything in the many, many shops in the village, because there are many

potters there, you couldn't get waited on. You just had to wait with the things you selected. It

was horrible. It was like that everywhere we went, if there was a potter that was pretty well

known. Of course they have the tea ceremony tradition going on for centuries. So even if we haven't heard about them, Japan has. (Many) Korean potters (were brought back as prisoners

of war between 1592-98 by Shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi and settled in various fiefs under

the protection of the daimyos for whom they produced all their wares.) The decedents are

still there and they're very famous today and very well respected. They're doing beautiful

work. Many Americans didn't know anything about them but if you happened to go there,

you would know these are really incredible potters. But anyway, we had their standards to

look up to.

In the Orient they don't distinguish utilitarian ware from sculpture. In the West they do,

especially in America. When we were starting out, pottery that were utilitarian-if there was

a use for it like a pitcher, a teapot, or a bowl even, a vase-was not allowed in our art shows

at the Academy. In fact there was a little squib at the very bottom (of the entry forms): Utilitarian ceramics will not be eligible. We had to prove that we were making something that's worthwhile for these shows, so we started an organization called Hawai'i Craftsmen.

This was not just ceramics but wood and metal and everything else. Because in those days it

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was strictly the traditional marble carvings, oil paintings. They didn't even have acrylics at

that time. Some metal [but] there was no bronze casting here. If you had something cast

somewhere else that would be eligible. But anyway we had that to fight. So Hawai 'i Craftsmen started having our own exhibitions with ceramics, and of course a few years ago

the Academy finally invited Hawai'i Craftsmen to do their annual show there. We show at [Academy Arts Center at] Linekona now, which is across the street from-it's part of the Academy. Almost every year.

So (ceramics) have been finally accepted as an art form. So that's a big thing and lots of

people don't realize that. In fact I served on the board of this Hawai 'i Craftsmen again

recently. I'm a charter member. I served again recently to help out. I'm serving with people

who know nothing about the past. They want to go commercial-like let's help sell the stuff we're making. But I'm all for education first. We educate all our people into what's happening, the latest stuff, the latest shows. Who are the people who should be coming here

to help us out, showing us what's being done in the country. Not that we need that, because more of us are traveling now and we always hit the museums. But to meet the person is

special. So every year we bring in someone. We have a program every year called 'aha hana

Lima, and we bring in a metal worker, a wood worker and a clay worker or a jeweler, but usually three. This past one we had a woman from Korea. She did the gold, thick foil on silver. I took her course and it was so helpful in shifting your approach and how you use your eyes in clay. So I tell my students, "You don't have to just go after the ceramics person. Try something new and you'll see a whole new way of working in your clay." But this is hard to do. But you can still meet that person and become friends with that person who is in

your field. So they really should do this. Get out of their field just to see what their problems

are and how they solve it. That kind of stuff.

HY: Do you feel that the program that Claude Horan started continued in the direction ...

HM: Of course it has changed but it's bound to change. Everything changes. But it is still with the

same standards. Although it could be a totally different look now, the standards are still

there, still there.

HY: Okay, anything else?

HM: That's it.

HY: Okay, thank you very much.

HM: You're very welcome.

END OF INTERVIEW

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