Home > Pele and Hi'iaka, A Tale of Two Sisters > Introduction
This book began simply as an excuse to make more blockprints. I'm always on the lookout for Hawaiian stories, myths and legends of which I can make illustrations. So, when I discovered Nathaniel Emerson's Pele and Hi'iaka, I couldn't resist all that potential for making more prints of such a wonderful story.
Such stories and legends long remained unheard because they were secluded in oral tradition. They had to be recorded for us to know about them. Gradually some were translated into written language and, like Emerson's writing of Pele and Hi'iaka, became available in English.
So another unique opportunity presented itself: the making of visualizations of the written text. I shamelessly chose to seize this opportunity to convert the oral into the visual and thereby engrave these Hawaiian cultural treasures even deeper into permanence. Who could resist such an opportunity?
Dietrich Varez
Volcano, Hawai'i