This painting was inspired after spending my childhood and adult summers in West Maui. While this circumstance might evoke warm thoughts of a life in Paradise, I have seen the island succumb to the pressures of development as it moved from 25,000 to 100,000 residents. This painting tries to capture this duality, a cheery place over-run by alcoholism, runaway construction, pestilence, fast food and tourism. A delta blues man sings a song to two Hawaiians who stare in drunken disbelief, sitting on a wall going nowhere. Fully clothed natives are forced to watch haoles wind-surf their former break, while a cat makes the most of a trash can filled with the debris of a Happy Meal and beer bottles.