Koa Canvas Print

The word “koa” means “warrior” in Hawaiian. The warriors of King Kamehameha the Great, created canoes and weapons from a wood plentiful on the Big Island of Hawaii. This wood became synonymous with the warriors themselves, and it became known as koa.

I planted the seed that I gathered from an old koa tree and planted them 17 years ago in my front yard. The tree is now only eight feet high, but is very happy, full of beautiful little round flowers.

Koa is the largest native tree in the Hawaiian Islands reaching heights of about 115 feet (33 m)! Commercially, koa is one of the most expensive woods in the world.

I've lived in Hawaii since 2002, 1200 feet above sea level, on the small rural island of Moloka'i. It is very quiet here, with only about 7,400 residents. I appreciate the quiet life after spending 35 years as a commercial illustrator, senior art director and design director for major advertising agencies and design studios in Chicago, San Francisco and Palo Alto California. I've always loved cooking. In 2002 that love led me to a degree in the Culinary Arts just before moving to Hawaii. Since then I designed and built a house, worked in local restaurants, self-published three cookbooks, and took up photography as a hobby. Now retired, I spend most of my time developing recipes and photographing them, plus researching and writing...