Hawai‘i Artist Collaboration is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization working to create opportunities for artists and arts organizations to integrate collective knowledge, experience, and resources for the benefit of our communities. Our flagship event is the week long Hawai‘i Artist Collaboration Gathering in the fall.
The artwork produced each year during Collab is offered for sale at our annual charity art auction. Proceeds from our art sales and ticket purchases help fund art supplies for classrooms, provide scholarships and support future educational and collaboration events.
Art Educators Fund
The Hawai‘i Artist Collaboration Art Educators Fund awards funds to teachers to be spent at Akamai art supply on supplies for their classrooms. As of 2024 we have provided over $30,000 in assistance to teachers through this program.
We believe that art education is crucial, beneficial, powerful, motivating and inspirational. We believe it improves the entire learning experience. Creativity needs to be nurtured and supported and teachers are the voice for our keiki.
If you are an educator who could use help securing art supplies for your classroom, please fill out the Art Educators Grant Application. Grant awards are available under the teachers name and unused funds are returned to the grant.
Scholarships
The Hawai‘i Artist Collaboration provides a variety of scholarship opportunities to help artists and students participate in Collaborative art programs. Some of our recent Scholarships include:
Hawai‘i Artist Collaboration awarded a Summer Experience Scholarship in partnership with the Donkey Mill Art Center to allow a student to take part in their 2024 Youth Summer Art Experience. Mahealani Hill, age 17, was invited to participate in the 5-week art experience.
We are providing two “Teach the Teacher” Scholarships to participate in the 2024 Collab event. The goal is to get more tools into the hands of teachers via our projects and develop a curriculum that engages students to collaborate together on projects larger than one person can accomplish.
The Collab provided travel and scholarship help to participating collaborative artists who give so much of their time and talent to Collab events.
Supporting Programs for Children
The Hawai‘i Artist Collaboration and our Collaboration Artists continually find ways to support children in our community. We have given supplies to public, private, and charter schools and have been able to help with numerous art startups and county art programs.
We made funds available for the Maui fire shelters who were running housing and therapy for children affected by the fire.
In 2020 students were working from home due to the Covid epidemic. Many kids had no place to call their own. A woodworker in California named Mitch Couch came up with the idea to build small desks for these kids and the Roberts foundation provided funding for materials. Artists built 35 of these units and Kealekehe middle school distributed them to students who needed them.
We inspired and participated in the first county arts summit with the goal of providing more educational opportunities for at-risk kids.
Hawai‘i County Art Installations
Hawai‘i Artist Collaboration is consulting with Hawai‘i County on island wide arts installation ideas with two sites in process right now.
We are working to build a series of universal mounting bases all across the island. This would allow us to create a ‘sculpture gathering’ to produce works that are relevant to the host communities, then rotate the collection every two years.
The first piece is ready for installation in wonderful downtown Holualoa. We are working on the bases now. The goal is to involve communities in the public art process, but keep the collection accessible and allow more voices to be heard.
More information and photos to come as these are developed.
