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Hindsight may be 20:20.....but I think many people would rather forget 2020.Itʻs been a tumultuous year for SO MANY reasons!!

In the United States, we all know about "Black Friday"....the deals, the HUGE sales, the long lines of shoppers.........in general retail mayhem. Even though, this year "Black Friday" will look very different from years past, I've never been a fan of "Black Friday" in general and I will choose to call any and all promotions I do on Thanksgiving weekend, Pōmaika'i (good fortune or blessings). I worked in retail management for many years, so I ALWAYS worked on "Black Friday". For me, Black Friday meant long hours prepping the store for the crazy weekend, standing on my feet for 8-10 hours a day dealing with hundreds of customers now irritated from lack of parking spaces to get into the mall and excessively...

As I mentioned in my previous blog post....both of my parents were exceptional Hawaii artists. My mom, a super creative fashion designer and my dad ....well.....my dad was definitely a pioneer of glassblowing in Hawaii. My father, Murray Aschelman Holt Jr was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Murray and WIlma Holt.  His parents were somewhat typical for the time...his dad was a civil engineer and worked for the US Navy building shipyards.  And my grandmother was a title searcher for the State of Hawaii.  I'm sure they had high expectations that my dad Jug ( sidebar: my dad's nickname - a shortened version of Juggen, the German word for Junior as my grandfather didn't want him to be called "Junior-boy"), imagine...

Kuleana.... a uniquely Hawaiian value, loosely translates to "responsibility". The word kuleana refers to a reciprocal relationship between the person doing the action and the thing they are responsible for.    Whether one believes in wearing a mask or not.....the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world we live in.  Personally, I hate wearing a mask!!! I sweat and feel it's difficult to breathe..... but currently in Hawaii, masks are mandated in places of business, public settings and in places that social distancing is not possible.   On top of the mandated reasons for wearing a masks, I believe it's a social kuleana to protect those around us.....I wear a mask to protect you and I hope that you'd wear one to do...

I grew up playing with scraps of Hawaiian print fabric that were strewn about beneath my mom's cutting table......occasionally getting pricked by the random fallen sewing pin. Watching mom concentrating on her patterns pinned on the mannequin forms....the afternoon sun shining through her golden hair. My mom, Sherry Holt graduated from the University of Hawaii and was driven to pursue her dreams as a fashion designer.  Her first job was as designer at Lauhala Sportswear, specialising in modern feminine patterns from classic Hawaiian prints.      In the mid 1970's, She went on to start her own company called Sunshine Hawaii.  She was at the forefront of a Hawaiian movement and brought "aloha shirts" and Hawaiian prints into the mainstream apparel business....