Project Description
About the Piece
“Overview of Diamond Head” attempts to present the “big picture,” or rather several big pictures showing the history and current geography of Diamond Head. The central image is a full 360 degree view inside the crater showing numerous trails and contours of the rim. Reproduced along the bottom of the print is a series of sepia‑toned drawings of Diamond Head made by a variety of early western travelers to and residents of Oahu. These early artists, some of whom are anonymous, probably never viewed the interior of the crater.
About the Artist
Laura Ruby is a 2015 Hawaii Living Treasure Honoree and a 2008 recipient of the Hawai’i Individual Artist Fellowship (the highest honor in the visual arts). Her prints and sculptures have been shown in national and international solo, juried, and invitational exhibitions. Her essay and a selection of her prints from the “Nancy Drew Series” are published in Rediscovering Nancy Drew (1995). She continues to create her “Diamond Head Series” of prints and installation sculptures. She has created large site-specific sculptures including The Battle of Mōʻiliʻili (2016), Chinatown—Site of Passage (1994), Stage Set–Mise en Scene (1991), and Cromlech (1980). She is currently working on a large Historic Honoka’a Town Project as researcher and writer compiling historical photographs, documents, and interviews. She taught art and honors at the University of Hawaii for 34 years, and she edited the book Mo‘ili‘ili–The Life of a Community (2005), and co-authored the books Honolulu Town (2012) and Honokaa Town (2015) with Ross W. Stephenson.