Both of my parents are professional artists, and my grandparents all were involved in the various arts. When I was little, they were attending the California College of Arts and Crafts, so my earliest years were spent around some of the Bay Area’s foremost artists and artisans.
I never was given any of the children’s art kits. I just copied my parents and used their things, so creating art and crafting was just a normal part of life. Kind of like little kids following their parents around in the kitchen and climbing on a chair to stir the gravy. Making things was as normal as cooking dinner. Just something we did.
Although my first career was in journalism, and I have a second career as an educator, I never stopped making things, crafting and creating art. It’s been a continuous thread through my life.
Growing up, I hung out at Daddy’s workshop and swept up, sorted scrap, that kind of thing. Then, as an adult, I started apprenticing with him. When Manu and I met, he also started apprenticing with Daddy. So we are the second generation to be making the Malama Torches™.
There is really no single thing I most enjoy about my craft. Well, maybe when I meet someone who bought something years ago who still loves it. It’s a wonderful feeling that something you created has given someone else joy. But among the things I love: The interplay of colors as the torch heats the metal. Seeing something as cold and inorganic as a piece of steel become warm and organic in form.
But on the other hand, I am actually a huge fan of the brutalist movement in art and architecture. So I love to create things that honor the intrinsic honesty of the material. In my lighting, rather than try and hide the wiring, sometimes I’ll use it as a design element.
I really love everything about my craft. From initial design to construction, to final product, to meeting someone 20 years later who says, “Oh, I still use the lamp I bought from you!” or, “My daughter has the piece now!” I’ve even had people tell me about pieces they have that my father made. That’s a really nice feeling, to have such a sense of history.
Leilehua Yuen grew up in the town of Hilo, Hawaiʻi, and was trained from childhood by her father Don Yuen to create welded sculpture and lighting in the modern Hawaiʻiana style. She pursued her education at the University of Hawaiʻi, and then enjoyed a three-decade long career in journalism, basing out of Hawaiʻi and traveling to locations around the world. Throughout that time, she continued to work as an artist, both in sculpture and in traditional Hawaiian cultural arts. After retiring from journalism, she returned to Hilo and to the family business. She then married Manu Josiah, and a new creative collaboration was born. Don Yuen also trained Manu in torch-making, and continues to advise the couple, assuring that his artistic esthetic carries on for another generation.
The traditional Hawaiian value of “kuleana,” responsibility, is a large part of why Leilehua returned to her roots. She feels a deep responsibility to the clientele her father serves, to providing quality hand-crafted products, and maintaining the strong tradition of craftsmanship inspired by her father. Leilehua’s great joy in art is using a variety of materials to express her visions of her island home.
Leilehua feels her greatest achievement in the business to date was curating an art show in 2015 featuring the lighting of LeiManu Designs, and including a small retrospective of her father’s work. Her greatest challenge has been to adjust to the growth of the business from a sole proprietorship to a partnership as it expands and increases in both personnel and product lines.