While in Hawaii, I witness an amazing artist. His name is Wayne Gabaylo, and much about him can be found here.

I visited Wayne in his gallery because I never seemed to catch him during his show on the street corner until it was way too crowded to see what he was doing. He was very nice, and explained to me what he does that attracts the crowds. Briefly, he uses normal spray paint cans and improvised masks, newspaper, cans, bottle tops and coins to mask his work at various stages, and uses spatulas and forks to carve it up. It looks like chaos while he’s doing it, he said, but at the end, he removes all these masks and, even though you’ve been watching him, most people tend to be surprised at the results. I bought one of his paintings for Aaron(his birthday would pass while I was away) and a DVD of him doing his act.

The next night, I managed to catch him before his show, sat down on the front row and watched the whole thing. At the end, he was right, I couldn’t believe what I just saw. I sat there and stared and tried to replay what I had just witnessed over and over. I almost cried, it was so beautiful. And so I continued to sit there and stare and think and contemplate this work of art that was just created moments ago and tried to soak it in.

The cell phone picture above is one of his works, “Tears of Joy,” finished and purchased(see “I’ve got a home in Japan”) moments before. Again, spray cans, cardboard, bottle tops and spatulas…

This is a video of him doing his thing, but it is sped up quite a bit. It gives you an good idea of what he does, but someday you’ll have to go to Hawaii and see it for yourself. Oh, yeah, and take me with you.