House Standing Committee on Culture & Arts

Good morning, everyone. We're traveling in for our 9:30am Informational Brief for the Committee on Culture and the Arts. It is Wednesday, January 14th, and we are in Conference Room 329, other side of the building from where we normally are. But I'm so excited. We have a new year.

We have a lot of great things that have happened through the SFCA, and I'm looking forward to hearing a little bit about the work that you folks have done, Implementation, and we'll just jump right into it. So I'll toss it back to you. Director Ewald from the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts.

Thank you so much. I can be heard, right? You can be heard, but we have different new microphones. Wonderful. Thank you. Good morning, Chair Kapela, and Happy New Year. And Happy New Year to the staff and everybody here. I'm excited to be presenting with you today on the Work of State. Okay, that's okay.

Okay.

Work of the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts. I'm Karen Ewald. I'm the Executive Director for the State Foundation, and I have been working in this capacity as Director of the Art and Public Places Program and now as Executive Director for a total of 11 years.

And I'm proud to be flanked by a couple of the many wonderful staff at SFC here as well. So. So we have Kamakani Koniya, fairly new Art and Public Places Director and Director of the Capital Modern.

And he's been with us for quite a few years as well, and was working in the past on the Commission Works Art Projects, and also the Scholastics Art and Writing Awards that we do every year, and you're currently doing that as well.

And then I also have Danica Rosengrand, who's our Arts Program specialist, focusing on arts education programming throughout the state of Hawaii, which includes Arts in the Schools program, professional development for educators, and the Arts First Partnership. And she can talk more about that as well. Both of them are available to talk if you have questions.

And I also want to note that also here in the room today, and not on the SSCA roster, is Gordon Wood, the head of the Public Works Department. He's been so gracious to join us in this briefing to speak to the Capital Pools project. He's much more heavily involved in that process.

So this presentation is going to be comprehensive, but also as succinct as possible, because I know we are all pressed for some time, but thank you again for giving us the opportunity to speak. Okay. How do I do this? Okay, thank you.

Sorry.

So some important Things off the bat to express to the Committee is that the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts is a statewide agency, which means that we serve folks in all of Hawaii on all islands. So we make it a priority to ensure that we physically are present on the neighbor islands when we can be.

And as part of our new strategic plan, you will be even more engaged in the communities. Another thing to emphasize is that community Members are valuable assets for decision making.

The community that we serve are on selection panels and committees to help state foundations select those who apply for grants programs and even works of art for the permanent statewide collection. So we are a community based decision making agency.

We have a board of commissioners across the island chain who oversee the policies of the State Foundation on Culture in the Arts and they also represent every island. I will note that the commissioners approved the latest strategic plan which is being implemented in 2025-2029. And to the point of community based decision making.

We finalized the plan after hosting numerous listening sessions, surveys and one on one conversations with stakeholders. And that was built. So the plan was built from the voice of the community. It's being designed right now and actually printed.

So we're, we're going to be really happy to deliver it to you guys when it's ready and posted on our website. So here's an overview of our programs. I'm going to go over the major ones here.

We are the biggest funder of arts and culture in the state of Hawaii and thanks to the Legislature as well as the Federal Government for ensuring that we, that we are and we utilize a budget for many different kinds of programs.

So our overall grants programming is multifaceted in the sense that we administer community grants to arts and culture orgs throughout the state. And you'll see the list of organizations here. So I'm just showing you actually pages from that annual report that is in its final stages. But these are.

This is a list of the grants of the community grants, also known as biennium grants that we funded last year, last fiscal year, fiscal year 25.

And so you'll also see in terms of the grants program, we also have a folk and traditional arts program where the State Foundation provides grant money for cultural practitioners to serve through apprenticeships or cohorts of students, students to continue to perpetuate cultural practices that they master.

So you'll see that as well in here, as well as grants and aid. So we administer grants and aid. And the artisan schools. Okay. So this is a really robust program.

It's a huge part of our programming and you'll see here as I talk about the school schools that state foundation has served in fiscal year 25 from our annual report, many many schools through arts education. So just to inform people about the Arts in Schools program, it's arts.

They're arts residency grants that provide engaging, creative and fun learning experiences based on the fine arts standards for all grade levels through residencies with qualified trained teaching artists.

So many of these teaching artists integrate their art form with other core curriculum areas such as language arts, math, social studies and science, meaning both fine arts and other core standards. All state of Hawaii public schools and public charter schools, grades Pre K through 12, are eligible to apply.

And Nikki can talk more about this current status right now on applications, if you guys are curious. So a residency consists of a minimum of five secondary or eight elementary sessions by the teaching artist with the same core group of students. And they have to support the fine arts standards from the Department of Education.

So they run the whole gamut of different art forms like dance, drama, theater, literary arts, mime, music, puppetry, visual arts, everything. It's really incredible. So we are currently serving 102 schools this current fiscal year. You'll see right now I'm showing you the last fiscal year, this current fiscal year, and the interest is definitely increasing.

So there we did get more applications than the prior year for this. So another thing with arts education, we also hold the Teaching Arts Institute and provide professional development for teachers and teaching artists.

And the most recent efforts that Nikki has been spearheading in partnership with Honolulu Theatre for Youth is programming for our neurodivergent populations with incredible art experiences tailored specifically for them. And I know that we're planning to have a visit with that. So that's awesome.

We've begun work as well thanks to the federal funding from the NEA on arts and health initiatives. So we, with our partnership agreement this fiscal year, we received money specifically to address arts and health, and it's to provide arts education.

So we are using those funds and Nikki's fantastic at doing this, using those funds to provide arts education to those outside of school, like those in elderly housing, after school programs, housing populations and those displaced by trauma, environmental changes and more.

So the initiative was in the funding allocation from the NEA to address the loneliness pandemic and in the country. So we are focusing on those in Hawaii outside of the classroom, with those who suffer from isolation, depression, trauma, and you'll see more of the schools that we serve. And so our Art and Public places program.

So this is the most, a lot of Folks are most aware of when they think of the state foundation. It's robust in funding, very visible as you'll see on the walls of the Capitol and as well as in over 500 state facilities throughout Hawaii.

The public art program includes the support of contemporary artists in Hawaii through acquisition and commission of works of art. And fun exciting thing. You'll see a barcode here that actually. And I'll share it far and wide. It's our fairly new. It's been up for maybe like a year now, our new searchable website.

So it's really cool because we actually are able to. You're actually able to type in even you'll find with the work of art where it currently is, which we hadn't had for a long time. And you can even search by island. So it's a really cool new feature that we have. Newish feature.

So also the Hawaii State Art Museum, also known as Capitol Modern. It's another strong presence in our agency that has welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors over the last few years. And interest and attendance continues to grow. And we are the Free Contemporary.

Okay, we're gambling back in for our informational brief. This is still the Committee on Culture and the Arts. Quick interlude. Because we are having technical issues in the building and false alarms with safety. So Director Ewal, please continue.

Yes, thank you so much and I'll back up just a little bit. I was talking about the Hawaii State Art Museum, also known as Capitol Modern. And we have welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors over the last few years.

It's really become a huge gathering place on Oahu and for a lot of local folks as well as visitors. So we are the Free Contemporary Art Museum right next door with a huge slate of programming offered during the day on weekends as well as after hours on first and third Friday nights. We keep it.

We keep our focus local. So our focus is cultivating the local arts and culture scene. So showcasing the works of all different various forms of art from local artists is what we. We want to do on an active basis. In 2025, we welcomed 58,050 visitors and 3,400 students on their school visits. So that was really great.

We continue to grow in attendance and we also continue to find innovative ways to activate the space space. So we were a site in 2024 for the festival of Pacific Arts and Culture and we welcomed delegations to the front lawn as well as showcase multiple practices from our community of native wine practitioners and artists and creatives.

So we, we intend to host future festivals like this on a much smaller scale than Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture and actually have been working with the folks that we worked with, the Hawaiian cohorts that we worked with at the Festival of Pacific Arts Culture to bring to Capital Modern something like this in the future.

I'm hopeful that we can do it the following year. That's my hope. And last October we were a site for Phil Lam Festival, which celebrated Filipino culture and heritage. We partnered often with Shangri La and the LGBTQ Legacy foundation to have unique events for folks there.

So it's a really wonderful place and we're very, very proud of it and. Right. So, so just, you know, some of those pages I was showing you are taken from our annual report, which is being finalized as we speak.

I'll make sure it's sent to everyone at the capital as as usual and we'll post it on our website and announce in social media. But we are going to go over in in the annual report, you'll see highlights from fiscal year 25. You will see the strategic plan go strap plan for fiscal year 26-27.

And we'll talk you'll see a little bit about the Poet laureate, Brandy, who's actually her term is ending very soon and we will be announcing a new poet laureate, which is great. And then a little bit about the King Kamehameha Celebration Commission and also the our financial summary of fiscal year 25.

But I'll get more into what I know we you guys were wanting to know more about is the implementation of Act 131, our new, our new fiscal situation. Hello Representative, thank you for being here. So I'll go over the process of this because it's good for you to know.

But one thing I want to first put up is that in terms of the funds that came out of Act 131 and the General Fund appropriation, everything is set. We're administering the money. We're great, we're good.

But I will go over the process that we undertook and we just to show you that things don't happen overnight which you already understand. But so we are attached agency under the Department of Accounting and General Services and their Administrative Services office.

ASO worked directly with the leadership team to ensure that the funding that came out of Act 131 would be in our accounts for implementation as a efficiently as possible. So we did have our General Fund appropriation from the budget bill.

And then we the, the tricky, the challenging part was getting the budget code set for this out of the, out of Act 131. So and also for this fiscal year we had an adjustment to the works of art special Fund. So the ceiling access to the money was reduced to 3.3 million.

And also to keep in mind that 2 million is allocated towards capital pools project. So the funding that was used from the Special Fund for the various programs had to be changed into General funds. But it couldn't be changed to. I'm being really technical but G033, it had to have its own code. Right.

So it became G394 and it was. And so now we're kind of dealing with an additional Fund, just more math. So we had multiple meetings with DAGs ASO. They helped us walk through the process of requesting allotments from budget and finance and the Governor as needed, writing memos establishing the new budget appropriation number we needed to do.

We still need to do the same process with all the other funding. But this took a little more effort, time and paperwork. But like I said, I'm happy to report that it was all established and we are administering the funds. We did run into the issue of invoices from fiscal year 25.

Right.

So which was unexpected, which cut into the Fund the budget that we. That was allocated to us out of Act 131. So invoices that were sent to us for us to pay that were had encumbered encumbrances from the Special Fund in fiscal year 25 had to be re.

Encumbered that amount from that Invoice out of G394, Act 131. So that took chunks out of, not massive chunks, but chunks out of our. Out of that General Fund budget. So that was all said and done. But. And for this fiscal year coming, moving forward, it's not going to be that. That way.

So that's, that's a promising thing. And then the other thing that we are now dealing with more of is the, the restriction. So There is a 10% restriction on all General funds which we don't usually have with this, which we don't have the special Fund.

So there is an amount of funding that we will be requesting to be released this quarter. But the tricky part is that we can do because we're all creative here, is administering those funds within that shorter amount of time.

So if the request is approved, then we need to move that money within the span of a couple months. Right. So that's going to be the big challenge. And then the last thing on this that we wanted to mention is we did run into a situation with The Performing Arts Grants Program, at which Rep.

Kapela is fully aware of, we've been talking about. So the program was from what. And I'm not speaking as Deputy AG Very well here, but the program was it put in the bill HB 1378 as its own unique program. So it long story short, that needs then for us to establish new administrative rules.

So which is a lengthy process. So we were prepared to launch the Performing Arts Grants Program. We have everything set up and ready to go. We were going to administer the program similar to the programs that we do with the Community Grants Program under Chapter nine.

But because of the need to establish new administrative rules, we need to go through that long process. Now, I am working with Rep. Kapela on ensuring that maybe there's a better way to go about it, maybe through a measure or something like that.

So we're diligently working on it and we are very hopeful that, that we can move that money out. But I did want to let you guys know about that and you're fully aware of that.

And.

So this is basically I'm just. And sorry about the graph. I'm so bad at graphs. So here is our current budget. In the, in the annual report, you will see the budget from last fiscal year. It has changed. So I really just want to focus on this one.

And I did have an emergency has been reported in this building really close to time.

Please cease operations and leave the building utilizing the nearest exit or fire exit.

Do not use.

Restarting. I think the building is. Okay, we've been giving the all clear sign. So again, back to you, Director Ewald.

I think we are almost through. Yes, thank you. I'm almost done, actually. Yes. So this is just, I'm just giving you a broad overview of the total budget. It does include the Bishop Museum and Iolani palace line items. And also you'll see we. Because we're. I'm very realist on what we actually have in our budget.

These, this is with the 10% restriction. So there will be more if we. Yeah. Have that approved. And then. Yes. So the. So I was asked to talk a little bit about the commission works of art and what the process is for that. So they are.

So for those of you who don't know, they're considered permanent and site specific. Created by contemporary artists that are made of various bronze, glass, Mosaic, et cetera. They are created by artists who are informed by an art advisory Committee that is made up of stakeholders within the surrounding community of the building.

So the artists and the art Advisory Committee over time develop a pretty close relationship with each other as these projects tend to take like between two to five years based on construction of the building, whatever, you know. So the most prominent, we currently have seven active commissions in various stages of creation.

The most prominent at this point in time is the Capital Pools project by RS Solomon Enos. But we also have beautiful work at. To be installed at Daniel Kaka Veterans Home in Kapolei and at Wahiawa Civic center and a mosaic at Kona Airport to name a few.

So there are more requests for commission works of art from departments, especially when new buildings are being planned for construction. And this was actually a question that came up at the Ways and Means Committee yesterday. The prioritization of sites. Right. So priority. So we're more formal. We're formalizing it more.

Thanks to talking with you Rep Kapela on this where Kamukani Kunia and our information specialist Mamiko Carol have are like today or tomorrow putting up on our website and announcing this established process on how to request a commission work of art.

Initially we were thinking of doing like a form but then we realized the request has to come from the Department head. So it does have to come from the head of libraries, the head of airports, blah blah blah. It can or. Or a designated leadership that they have.

So.

So but it does give the step by step overview and. And what we need from them. And it could, it doesn't need to be any more put on letterhead. It could be an email, whatever. But once and what we do generally is we take naturally it's been in a.

In a pretty solid rotation where say libraries will give us a list of. In priority of libraries that they want served with our commission works of art airports the same way that usually comes out of new terminals being built or renovated.

And so we have like we always have one school, one library, you know, one building generally of a civic center. Now it's never really like three libraries at once or it could be it because there are so many schools. It can be two or three schools at one time. So. So we do have that information.

We're up any like today or tomorrow. I just. We've just emailing each other with the steps that need to be taken to request the works of art. So if there.

I want to also say if there's anything if people are interested, if people want to know more, they don't have to be the head to reach out to me. They can talk to myself or Kamikane Konia about the process. But in order to receive a commission work of art advisory Committee, then that's the General process.

So anyway, if you have more questions on that, I'm happy to answer. And then lastly, update on Capital Pools project. So I'm going to call Gordon up here because he is. He's the expert on this.

Hello, Gordon. Gordon from Public Works Division? Yep. Gordon Wood, Public, DAGS Public Works Administrator. A little history on the project, just for context. Our project for bordering proof waterproofing improvements to the chambers level, which is our title, but it's actually the Capital Pools is a three phase project.

The first phase had to do with waterproofing of the Diamond Head pool. The second phase dealt with waterproofing of the EWA pool as well as the.

Attention, an emergency has been reported in this building.

Okay, please cease an operation.

Okay, once again, a new all clear. I'll hand it back to you, folks.

Okay. And so, phase two has to do with the ever pool waterproofing and waterproofing of the ground floor, stairs, plazas, and ramps. Okay. And some of that work is still ongoing. You can, you can see them out there cutting decorative joints into the concrete and so forth. And so, that remains ongoing.

Phase three will be to complete the project and that will provide the artwork as well as other construction within each of the pools, 16-foot-wide promenade in each of the pools, around three sides, new ramps so that people can access down onto, onto the, onto those promenades and the artwork itself. Astounding project.

Okay.

Okay. Why is it taking so long? Right? Okay, well, last year, early last year, we went to bid on phase three, and we got three, three bids on that. We denied all three bids. Okay. And canceled the solicitation. Okay.

First, I'll run through what happened with the bid protests, and then I'll talk about canceling the solicitation, how we're moving forward. The, the protest we denied, one protester appealed our denial to the Office of Administrative Hearings.

There, protesters did not prevail, and so, appeal to the Circuit Court for Judicial Review did not actually prevail there, although the court did find one narrow question that it remanded to administrative hearing for further examination. Okay. So, we went through that. That narrow question was decided in the state's favor that the protester did not prevail again.

He and, again, appealed to the Circuit Court for Judicial Review of that decision and did not prevail at the Circuit Court. Finally, with that decision, there was a deadline for when that protester could file an additional appeal. That deadline was December 29th. On December 31st, we will...

An emergency has been reported in this building. Please cease operations and leave the building utilizing the nearest exit or fire exit stairway.

Can we just keep going? I know, I know.

It's your choice. I'm willing to sit here and continue.

I think we have to recess. It's okay? Okay, I got an all clear from Sergeant. We can continue.

Oh, okay. And on December 31st, we were able to confirm that no appeal had been filed. And so, we were—then I should explain that—once a protest is filed, we have to stay all activity on that project so we could do no work on phase three.

And it's a little confusing because work on phase two continued, so it seemed like stuff was going on, but that was all phase two, phase three, nothing could be done. Finally, on December 31st, we found out that we could restart work on that. Okay. And so, since that, that time, we have been working on the new solicitation for that.

And why did we cancel the original solicitation? For the original solicitation, we were looking for beds to do, you know, all the concrete work and all that kind of stuff and to install the glass panels that constitute the artwork.

But the glass panels would have been purchased by the state separately and just provided to the contractor for the installation. Normally in our construction contracts—not normally, always in our construction contracts—we require the contractor to post both payment and performance bonds, and both are in 100% of the contract value.

The glass supplier that we were going to purchase the glass from could not postpone like that, which would leave the state at significant risk because we're talking, talking at that point about 10 or $11 million. That's a big risk if we don't have some sort of surety.

So, we decided that it would be in the state's best interest to have the contractor purchase the glass from that glass provider, and then we could rely on the contractor's payment and performance. Okay. But in order to do that, we had to cancel the original solicitation for phase three and write a new solicitation for phase three.

And so, we are working on that new solicitation in earnest after having had to put aside that work for almost a year, okay, and we expect to rebid or rather resolicit from that job in March. Okay. Now, there's a chance that the solicitation will be protested or that the eventual bids will be protested.

We just have to deal with that. It's the real universe out there. Okay. But barring anything like with that, it'll take us a couple months to award the project and then a couple months to actually contract the project. And then after that, we expect to be about 13 or 14 months to complete the project.

Okay. Okay.

I'm glad you were here. I want to be respectful of your time, and I don't want you to have to sit through. I'm going to ask a couple of questions.

Actually, watch this. Thank you.

Perfect timing.

Ho—so, does that, where does that keep us with the original timeline of?

Oh, the, the, the original timeline.

Out the door.

It's pal. And actually, the original timeline expired in December of 2025. That's incorrect, we were looking at November 2026. Okay, that is out.

We're never going to hit that.

Okay.

And I know that some of the state's major decision makers had a lot riding on that deadline, and he has been informed that that deadline is no longer real and has accepted that.

Okay. Okay. Do you have an estimated timeline?

As I say...

14 months from March?

A couple months to award, a couple months to contract, and 13 or 14 months to actually complete the job. Okay. So, so, it's, it's, at this point, it's still holding calendar, okay, because of the potential for protests.

Okay.

What is the impact on—because a big number—this is a big number out of the works, Art Special Fund. Right?

What—and I've now, having to sit through, sat through a couple of different commission meetings, you see the, the impact of when a timeline can't be done and construction costs go up.

How—what kind of impact are we looking at on that?

It is, it is a substantial impact, but I won't try to make you feel good about that. Okay. It is substantial. The original budget for the construction contract—part of it was about 29 million. Okay. We expect that to increase by about 15%. The glass was originally about 10 or 11 million.

We actually expect that to increase by about 25%. And that has to do with tariffs and so forth. And something that I was made aware of just the other day, in Dr. Fink's briefing to the Finance Committee, there is something called the World Uncertainty Index. And so, I looked that up and it's really interesting.

It looks at a bunch of different measures. GDP, policy, public sentiment, and so forth. And they started measuring things back in 2008. Okay. And in 2008, it just sort of bubbles along. Okay. There's this, this—it's almost a horizontal line. Okay. With a lot of jigs and jags. And on January 2025, shot up.

And that scale that I just did is what this graph is actually showing. I'm not, not exaggerating that. Okay. So, we are seeing that jump in all of our pricing.

Okay.

We're trying to be circumspect about when we do our estimates of trying to accommodate that uncertainty, knowing that it could drop back down just as fast as it went.

Okay. I'm gonna have to look that up. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you for your overview of the capital pools and your work to try and move that project forward.

An emergency has been reported in this building. Please cease operations and leave the building utilizing the nearest exit.

Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Gordon. I appreciate it. Okay.

I could not have said that.

We're gonna.

Am I released?

You are released.

Okay.

Thanks, Gordon.

Okay, I got an all clear from Sergeant at Arms to continue, so we'll just do a couple of quick questions, and then I think we'll be... Did you have any questions? Okay.

Since we're still on the topic of capital pools, can you talk about how this impacts the need to increase the ceiling and how that uncertainty is tied to this?

Yeah, definitely. So, capital pool specific, thankfully, we've contracted the artists. We're okay there. We do—we are going to JV to $2 million that we're sealing to Public Works for the remainder of that.

But yes, to his point and to what your, your point is, we have, as you know, we, we've come to the—we've gone to the Board of Commissioners a couple times now, needing, asking for price for contract amendments to address the price increase on materials for artists that are doing commissioned works of art.

And we do anticipate that that will happen more and more.

So, what we're doing, what we're talking about doing, to plan ahead better, is to budget a larger budget for each commission. Usually, we'll do maybe like, we'll put in $200,000 for a school commission, and we'll say work within that range and with even other commissions that we have throughout the state. But now, we want to budget higher, and, and there is more of a demand for commission works—new commission works of art.

We do have new buildings like, they were talking a lot about King Kamehameha III Elementary School, the Kahului Civic Center, which...has been in conversation with. So, there is a demand. So, we, we want, we would like to raise the ceiling.

Now, after the next fiscal year, we will only have access to 1.3 million of the Special Fund to purchase and commission works of art, and we already have—we budget about $600,000 for relocatable works of art. But for commission works of art, that only leaves us about 700,000—is that my?

Yeah, that only leaves us that much per year that we, we find is a little too low. So, especially with the demand being higher because we, we want to have multiple commissions at once. We sometimes will work up to like, 10. 10 commissions at one time. Right now, is at seven. Right? So.

So, access to the balance, the cash balance for the Special Fund, is currently like $22 million. So, just being able to access more of that balance in order to address the needs of the community is what we're asking for. So, and also knowing that, yeah, like what Gordon said, the materials, we're finding that the price of these works of art is increasing.

Obviously, that was a more unique situation with the protest. We don't get that with our commission works of art. We don't get that with the commission works of art that we work with.

But this is the largest scale public art piece in Hawaii ever. You know, this is incredible. So, I could see why there would be some conflicts. Yeah. So, does that answer your question?

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah.

To an extent, yes.

Yeah. I mean, we'll—we spend down the Special Fund every year. And you know, there, there was a question of, you know, understand, with the understanding that this is coming from the, from the cash balance of the Special Fund not being taken more out of the General Funds.

So, everything is an impact on the state. Don't get me wrong. I don't want to be flippant about it, but it's less of an impact because it's taken from that cash balance, you know.

Okay, what is the timeline for completion for most of the commissioned works projects?

About two to five years. It's kind of dependent on the, like, say, for instance, Kona Airport, which is also an airport, which can be very complicated in its construction. The artist only has—sometimes they have to shut down while they're doing construction, the area where the artist is working.

So, sometimes there's like a six-month shutdown and then they can go back in to get it. Other times it's like—the fastest was like two years. So, you know, it depends on—it depends. Also, sometimes, with schools projects, there's delay with turnover of staff. Right?

Sometimes artists have personal issues that, you know, sometimes, that needs to be dealt with. But for the most part, we try to get them done as quickly as can. So, it's two to five years.

Yeah. So, spending—I'm thinking about spending. When you're spending down the allotment.

Yeah.

It's gonna take two to five years. Are you thinking about that for each year when you're spending that out, or is that—do you award like a lump sum for that in the initial when it's first awarded in that first year, and then you come back and extra money is taken out from whatever year you're pulling from, from the Special Fund?

Yeah, so, yes, exactly. It's not so much an award. Well, I mean, yeah. Yes. It's a contract. So, we contract with the artist saying, okay, this is the amount of money that you have to complete the work of art, and, and the intention is to hold them to that. So, they scale accordingly.

They, you know, they—the materials accordingly. But because of the cost of materials going up so, so much with tariffs and all the things, they have been coming back. So, that's why we kind of want to get ahead of the game and say, okay, here's more. You know, like, here's—we're going to give you this much now.

And instead of having to go back like in a couple years to ask for more funds. That's the intention. Yeah.

Thank you for explaining. Okay. Another thing that I wanted to talk about was a couple of things relating to Native Hawaiian artists and cultural practitioners. You folks do wonderful work through your—darn.

An emergency has been reported in this building. Please cease operations and leave the building utilizing the nearest exit or fire exit.

Good to see you.

Good to see you.

Sorry. Happy New Year.

Happy New Year.

Yeah, sorry I have to leave, so.

I know.

Okay. I think.

Okay. We're getting an okay, so we're gonna keep going. Can we talk a little bit about supporting Native Hawaiian artists, whether it's through your folk and traditional grants or it's through really shifting what we're looking at when we are doing the purchasing for new works of art, how are you folks expanding to try and support local artists?

Not necessarily just visiting artists that are coming through. And what kind of process are you taking to?

Yeah. So, we're really happy to report that we have increased support monetarily of specifically Native Hawaiian arts. One thing I want to back up is most of the works of art that we purchase from artists in Hawaii, commission, as well as just the general support that we give is for Hawaii residents' artists. Right?

Very rarely do we do monetary support for artists from the mainland. Sometimes we do. But back to what you asked, yes, we have increased our support for that. And how have we done that?

Basically, it took over the course of the last six to seven years, more outreach. So, it really took the amazing staff that we have. I can't tell you how happy I am that we have such a great team to actually turn the table a little bit and actually be more outward facing.

So, and that really just took our curator reaching out to different galleries and us actually connecting with Native wine curators and artists. The teaching artist roster being more reflective of the community that it serves. Right? And that just took a lot of conversation, outreach, gatherings. And so, and it is quantified for sure, but out of that—and it took many, many years.

It took some hard conversations. But now, we are going to more gallery shows that are more diverse. We are diversifying the teaching roster. We're, and then we are—it is community-based decision making. These panels that we, that we select in order to support, but we—it's in the narrative. So.

And it's hard. Does that make sense? It's like it's a way for us to consciously and verbally express the intention to support Native Hawaiian artists.

I know there's conversation, and I totally agree with it, even during our development of the strategic plan that there are—that, to keep in mind that this is a multicultural state, very multicultural state, and, and to always put at the forefront the intention to support Native Hawaiian artists, but also knowing that there are other cultures that we need to be aware of, especially the, not just especially, but including the Pacific Diaspora cultures here. So.

And it really came to—a lot of it came to this really celebratory fruition during the Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture, because what we did was contracted multiple Native Hawaiian orgs to come in and kind of take over essentially, capital modern and showcase the kind of work that they've been doing through our funding, as well as funding from the National Dialogue for the Arts and other private funding.

So, yeah, that's—and we'll continue to do that. But I think there's also conversation and intention to ensure that other cultures are being supported as well. So. Yeah. Does that make sense?

That was great. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay. I think we're pushing close to an hour, so I think we're going to adjourn. I appreciate—and just a little bit of overview as well. I think it's really important to do informational briefs at the beginning of every legislative session.

I think it helps inform the work that we do as a Committee, and it also helps us be able to work better and more collaboratively with the needs of the foundation or the agencies that are within the scope of the committees. So, I really appreciate you folks being here.

I appreciate your staff coming and the conversations that we've had continuously to try and work to address, whether it's hiccups for from previous legislation or it's to just strengthen the foundation and access to arts as a whole and access to arts education.

So, thank you again, Director Ewald, and your team, and to our tech team as well, for trying to work through the technical difficulties.

I appreciate everyone. We're adjourned.