ALOHA MAU

Join us on Saturday, June 7th, 11am-1pm for the art opening for ALOHA MAU, a collection of mixed-media artwork by Kailua-based artist, Dawn Ustach. Refreshments will be provided.

About the Artist

Born and raised in Kailua, Oʻahu, Dawn Ustach is an artist, nature lover, and mother of two. From a young age, art has been an important part of her life. She began taking art classes at the age of five, threw on a pottery wheel for the first time at seven, and soon after was exploring screen printing and stained glass. Throughout her teens, Dawn continued to grow and experiment with a wide range of artistic media—it seemed she was always making something.

Her passion for the arts eventually took her off-island, where she earned a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in affiliation with Tufts University. There, she thrived in a multidisciplinary, conceptual environment and graduated as an award-winning artist. An avid surfer and hiker, Dawn naturally draws inspiration from the island she grew up on and the ocean surrounding it. The shores she plays in, the surfers she watches, and the flowers she forages often appear as the main characters in her work.

Dawn’s love for the land also extends to how she cares for it. She is committed to reducing waste by reusing and recycling whenever possible—a value that translates directly into her art-making process. Whether it’s scrap wood headed to the dump, a palm frond destined for the chipper, or unwanted clothing, Dawn makes a conscious effort to incorporate materials that would otherwise end up in a landfill. Working in mixed media has become second nature, shaped by a lifetime of having varied materials at hand. Her work continues to evolve from this intuitive, resourceful process—deeply rooted in place, memory, and a spirit of waste not, want not.

About the collection, in Dawn's words:

ALOHA MAU: A FOREVER KIND OF LOVE

How do you say goodbye to someone who is part of you — someone who gave you your DNA, your values, your sense of self? Someone you glimpse everywhere: in your son’s smile, in the ‘iwa bird gliding over Kailua Beach, even in the canned tomatoes at the grocery store?

You don’t. You can’t. They stay with you always, and the love you share never fades.

This series, Aloha Mau, began as a way of gathering the pieces — mentally, emotionally, and physically — after my father’s passing, and processing my grief the only way I know how: through creating. Sitting with, touching, and eventually making that first cut into his beloved aloha shirts brought new life and permanence to them. Through this act, I found a way to move forward without ever truly saying goodbye.

As the series developed, each piece became a scene of a larger story — a patchwork of memory and place. Using fabric from his shirts as both material and inspiration, I began to weave in imagery from my childhood building a personal tapestry of growing up in Hawai‘i.
Recently, I have started incorporating fabrics from my own life and my children’s lives, stitching together stories where we remain connected to him — where my father's presence continues to be celebrated in everything we do.

Aloha Mau is a love that does not end. It is a tapestry of belonging, memory, and the endless ways lives interweave to form the very fabric of family that carries on throughout generations.