The Hawaiʻi State Public Library System has unveiled new artwork for its summer reading program, created by the Kakaʻako-based artist Lauryn Gordines. This is the second time the summer reading program has had local artists create promotional artwork for the program, shared via flyers and social media.
“This year, the theme that they assigned to their program was mele, which means song,” Gordines told Aloha State Daily. “With music, it's a way to share stories and to tell stories of the past and the present and for people to be able to revisit and kind of immerse themselves in those stories.”
Gordines will be doing a meet and greet at the Hawaiʻi State Library, located at 478 S King St. in Honolulu, at 10 a.m. on Saturday, June 7.
Want to participate in the summer reading program? Online registration runs between June 1 and July 31. Children, teens and adults can participate with different prizes for each age group. The grand prizes include ʻukulele kits, Pizza Hut certificates and four vouchers for round-trip tickets from Alaska Airlines.
For Gordines, who is also a muralist, the project ties together her family’s relationships with the public library system. Her son, Kolby Chun, who is 15 years old, plays piano, harmonica and ʻukulele, among other instruments.
The artwork for the summer reading program is designed around an ʻukulele, which library users can borrow for free, using their library card. The boy sitting on the neck of the instrument and playing music is an “iteration of my son,” she said. Another kid in the artwork is listening to audio books. A third is reading the “Kumulipo.”
Her husband, Noah, listens to audiobooks, she added. Their youngest son, Oliver Gordines, who is 5 years old, borrows picture books. And the artist herself is “obsessed with Libby,” she said, referring to an app that allows library card users to read and listen to books on tape while on-the-go with a smartphone.
“As a family, we collectively borrow books all the time,” she said.
As someone who participated in the summer reading program as a kid, this event is especially significant, Gordines added.
“This was just such a full circle moment because I used to be a part of the summer reading challenge, and that was something I looked forward to as a kid every single summer,” she said.
Her grandfather used to get her art supplies and encourage her.
“I've been obsessed with art since I was a kid,” she added.
She enrolled in the University of Hawaʻi at Mānoa and planned to be a teacher, but later switched gears. She moved to Los Angeles to attend a fashion institute and worked as a fashion buyer and jewelry designer. She also started a jewelry brand, which sold products in more than 200 stores around the world.
Gordines did all her own marketing. She shot photos, built out websites and made graphics, she said. Soon, that work was getting attention.
“People started reaching out and asking me: Who does your marketing for you? We want to work with this person,” she said.
Today, Gordines and her husband run Ellemsee, a Hawaiʻi-founded design agency that works with local and global brands.
Separate from that, Gordines got involved with graphics and social media posts for Pow! Wow! Hawaiʻi, now known as World Wide Walls. There, she learned how to paint murals and has since created several for local schools.
“This is what I've always wanted to do,” she said. “And it's on such a huge scale, and to get that opportunity — every time I get to paint a wall, I feel so blessed. I feel like the luckiest person in the world that I get to do this. I've always told people the difference between being an artist and someone who wants to be an artist is: Artists just do it. You just do it. You put your love into it.”
Katie Helland can be reached at katie@alohastatedaily.com.
