Wood Yields To Metal At College Site
By Kerry Miller
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This semester was the last one for a popular wood-carving class that has met at Windward Community College for the several years.
“The program’s been up there for about eight years,” said instructor Craig Swedberg. “We’ve had people from Makaha, up that side, Hau`ula side come to our classes.”
The class, which is not an official college-credit course, is being displaced by an auto body course that is part of the college’s Employment Training Center program.
“I have no doubt that the people who were using the space are disappointed,” admitted WCC chancellor Angela Meixell. “We are disappointed also. Windward Community College encourages community use of our facilities, but we have to provide spaces for our students first. The decision to ask them to move was made after we eliminated all other possibilities.”
According to Meixell, WCC was allowing UH-Manoa’s Pacific Business Center to use the space for wood carving classes under a now-expired memorandum of agreement. Shane Eagleton, the former instructor who was there when the agreement was made, has since left the Islands. Since then, others have been using the space to teach wood carving and Hawaiian weapon making.
“There had been plans that never materialized to train large numbers of Pacific Islanders to carve,” Meixell said.“Since we believe that is a good thing, we allowed them to stay as long as possible.”
People with questions about the wood carving group may contact the WCC Continuing Education office and set up classes through the college.
“Ultimately, anything in the Iolani Building is temporary, as the building belongs to the Hawaii State Hospital, not to the college,” Meixell added.
Swedberg took over the class instruction after his experience attending the very first meeting.
“It’s been a passion of mine,” he explained, adding that “a lot of people have been really upset. We’re still working together, a little bit. We have an apprentice class to run through the end of April.
We’re going to have the classroom space for that.
“There have been a lot of calls from people in all walks, levels of life. They (WCC) didn’t realize the impact. We have Ph.Ds to judges, to a director of cultural programs, to students come through. We’ve had other Hawaiian cultural specialists that teach the weapons class.”
The wood-carving group held a pa`ina event last Saturday at the Iolani Building so that past and present students could share their experiences with carving and works they’ve created.
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