(waves crashing, instrumental music) Narrator:  If you're an artist about to choose  your material, did you ever think of   silk?

There are possibilities, one of which  is hand marbling.

Famed ʻukulele teacher Roy   Sakuma joins Spectrum Hawaii along with his  latest choice of super keikis.

But first,   Spectrum Hawaii learns that a coastal community's  heritage includes its maritime history.

A safe haven in the middle of the Pacific  Ocean, Honolulu Harbor has seen the arrivals   and departures of everything from canoes  to luxury liners.

In the earliest of days,   it was a hot and dusty place with poor beaches.

Only a few fishermen lived here by the mouth of   the freshwater Nuʻuanu Stream.

It was also a  heiau dedicated to Lono.

The land was called   Ko and for a long time, life here did not  change much.

Then the explorers arrived   in their strange ships with tall masts.

In 1793 Captain William Brown discovered   Ko for the Western world and named it Fair  Haven.

The Hawaiian translation Honolulu   became famous throughout the Pacific.

Those  who followed appreciated the significance of   the discovery.

Honolulu Harbor was the only  accessible natural harbor in the islands with   a channel cut by the fresh waters of the Nuʻuanu.

The harbor waters were calm, sheltered by offshore   reefs, and its location halfway between Asia  and America made it ideal for a pause in long   voyages.

As the harbor grew in popularity, so did  its importance.

King Kamehameha the First moved   his government from the Big Island to Honolulu  in 1803 to oversee the growth of the town.

In 1820 the missionaries arrived with Bibles and  dreams.

They came to live throughout the islands   and packet ships ran in between settlements,  carrying supplies and passengers.

Between 1823   and 1837 more than 1,600 ships docked at Honolulu.

There were the China traders with exotic cargos   of tea and sandalwood and the whalers restocking  provisions between kills and clients.

The city and   the harbor grew.

Begun in 1882 by Captain William  Matson, the Matson navigational company sailed   seven ships between California and Hawaiʻi with  island sugar as its major cargo.

50 years later,   the company added a new dimension.

Alexander Bolton:  Matson became involved in passenger traffic early  on in this century, but in 1927 began to become a   major passenger carrier and built the Malolo.

This  the the passenger ship Malolo, that was one of the   finest types of passenger ships in the world at  that time.

It was a it was a great period.

These   beautiful white ships would come around Diamond  Head with the morning sun shining on their white   hulls, and they would blow three blasts of welcome  to the Royal Hawaiian as they came into Honolulu   Harbor, and the canoes would be out with with  boats of all kinds, yachts and motor launches   greeting the arrival of this vessel.

The tug boat  from Young Brothers would take out dignitaries and   Hawaiian hula girls, and they would go aboard the  vessel offshore and greet the incoming passengers   with music and dancing and leis, and that is what  brought forward the boat day that people recall.

Narrator: Captain Jack Young and Captain Albert   Bader were young men in the midst of those days.

They worked the launches and tugs which brought   the white ships into the harbor.

Captain Jack Young:  We ran launches out to the ship and took several  hundred people and boarded a boarded, you know,   the Matson ships only.

And of course, they docked  all the passenger ships stopped at Pier 10, 11,   and they had the hula troop right down on the  end and the Royal Hawaiian Band midships.

And   it was really marvelous, you know.

And being  a pilot, well, I enjoyed it just as much.

Captain Albert Bader: Every sailing day, that's   every day now there was a ship going out  every afternoon.

Tuesdays and Fridays was   four o'clock in the afternoon.

But the rest of  the sailings was at night, nine o'clock at night,   either to Kauaʻi or to Maui.

But then pier 11 and  10, you always had one white ship.

Sometimes you'd   have three white ships in here, plus the president  lines, and this whole harbor was just busy all the   time.

It was quite interesting.

Narrator:  As a young girl, Mary Castro Richards  would come down to the harbor with her   father to watch the white ships come  in.

She, like other city residents,   would leave whatever she was doing to greet  the arrival, whether you knew anyone or not.

Mary Castro Richards: It was a big, big day,   and there would be lots of traffic downtown,  and the lei ladies out in front of the pier,   and the band and the music and the  leis were wonderful.

They were giant   gardenia leis.

Lots of the Mauna Loa.

But anyhow,  we would buy leis so that we could line them up in   our arms like this and go out to the ship.

Well,  the tugs would pull out early in the morning,   probably around seven o'clock, and we'd get  off the harbor here, and we'd wait.

The ship   would be waiting for us, and we'd wait for the  immigration people to go aboard, and then we'd   get in line on the little tug and wait for a great  big stevedore to give us a hoop, and in we go,   you know.

But we get aboard the ship and race  to meet whatever visitor we were.

And of course,   many times it was a member of the family, and  you'd ride with them, of course, at the railing   and come up to the harbor, come up to the dock,  and the Royal Hawaiian Band would be playing.

(instrumental music) Narrator:  The traditions for departure were just  as prescribed as those for arrival.

Mary Castro Richards: If you had seen someone off, you raced to Pier 2,   where you could wave and wave and once more,  whistle or whatever it was that you were doing,   blow your horn, mostly.

Then you would race  in your car to Diamond Head to the lookout,   and there you'd sit and flash a little  hand mirror and send that last signal.

Narrator: By the 1970s that   last signal was just a memory.

The jet airplane  changed the dynamics of travel.

The Matson company   sold their white ships, and the harbor changed.

There will always be ships in Honolulu Harbor.

98% of everything we use as an island state is  brought here by container ships and Fair Haven   will always be a safe port for fishing fleets,  training ships and the occasional liner, but an   era ended when that last white Matson ship sailed  out of the harbor to the strains of Aloha ʻOe.

(instrumental music) Hand marbling presents an endless variety   of fine lines, colors, shapes and patterns.

It  never ceased to capture the mind's eye of artists,   Michael Colombo and Barbara Barkley.

Michael Colombo:  One of the things about hand marbling,  to me has been the challenge of it,   to take it from a traditional craft form to a  fine art form.

And that's one, of the things   that keeps me going, I like a challenge,  and there's so few people doing marbling,   and it's it's really open ground versus many other  art forms, and that's what I see it as a lifetime   work for myself because of this challenge.

Hand marbling on paper versus silk is quite   different.

Marbling on silk ii's a little more  difficult because if you don't mix your colors   properly and you don't have certain formulas to  use, you'll lose what they call the hand of the   silk, which is the feel of the silk.

If you use  too much color or you don't mix it correctly,   you'll get very stiff feeling to it.

You'll also  have trouble in keeping the colors latched onto   the silk fibers themselves.

So when I did get  into marbling on silk, I tried to develop new   techniques and new formulas to control the colors  better and to come up with very unique patterns   outside of the book binders patterns, because I  felt that people that were buying artwear really,   even though they liked the traditional  type marbling would feel like they were   walking around with feeling somewhat like a book,  because you you're used to seeing it that way.

So,   I wanted to come out with these new patterns.

And as I did and there were, it was, it was,   it was a kind of an interesting process for me  over the years, seeing certain patterns appear   in the vat and then not being able to get get  them back.

So, it was a real challenge to keep   working backwards and forwards, to get these  patterns, these organic type of patterns that that   look like the environments in various ways.

People that that see the work compare the patterns   to many things.

Even within a similar pattern,  they see crystal formations, ocean scenes,   rock formations, even the movement I tried to  acquire over the years of getting the feeling of   movement like the wind, the rain, the movement of  the ocean and these, these type of things.

And it,   it was a long, hard process to do, because you  begin with basically a mistake, and you've got to   work backward to understand what you did, and then  be able to do it over and over and over again,   so you you feel good at what you're doing.

The artwork is, is taking all these formations   that I've learned over the years and piecing them  together on the liquid canvas of the carrageenan   and then picking them up on the silk.

I don't  use paper very often.

I like working with the   silk.

I like the way it feels.

I like the way  it looks after the art piece is done, and it's   just something about doing the environmental  types abstracts that I do on a natural fiber,   such as the silk.

Barbara Barkley:  Marbling is a very intense process.

It's  something that is done a lot in the head,   I think, before you put it on, and then striving  to reach that point that you've efforted in your   mind to create, and then to strive to do it once  it's in the vat, is always a challenge.

And it's   also a moving and growing process, because  you're, you're seeing what's there, and you   work with it.

You have an idea of what you want,  and then you look at what is happening and build   on that each time.

So it's, it's like a growth  thing, always, and we're always striving for   more.

We're always learning, and we're always  learning about our own process as we do it.

Michael Colombo: I guess one of the things I can say about   hand marbling, that that that's enjoyable to me,  is that it enables Barbara and I to work together.

Uh, we've tried many years to be able to start our  own business and to do something that you enjoy   every day you get up and you want to go down and  work on something.

And because of the challenge,   and because of being able to work with Barbara  and the the open ground that that marbling allows,   it's been great.

It's the business is growing.

It's not leaps and bounds, but it's, it's a   gradual growth.

One of the best things is just, we  go to many craft fairs here and on the mainland,   and one of the best feelings you get is when  people come up and touch the silk and look at   the artwork and and try on the jackets and walk  away with them, and they feel so good about the   the pieces.

They, many of the comments are  such that it's a very unique look to it,   that they enjoy that uniqueness that they can  feel, that they're walking away with an individual   piece.

Because every time you do marbling, every  time you lay a piece of silk on the liquid canvas   of the carrageenan and you pick it up, you start  all over again.

You've picked up all the color,   and you start anew every time.

You can never get  two pieces alike so it you don't feel like you're   in a craft form that becomes a production.

It's  each one is unique and personal, and when someone   walks away with a piece of this marbling, they can  be assured that they are.

They have the only one   in the world like that.

Narrator:  Just above Honolulu, off Round Top Drive,  lies a quiet, peaceful trail that takes a   traveler deep into Oʻahu's lush green interior.

(natural sound, birds chirping, water flowing)   (instrumental music) Roy Sakuma:  Oh yes, definitely.

You can even see it in this new group.

When they   first started with us, they were rather shy.

And  the only thing I promised the parents, I promised   the parents, one thing I said, if anything you  know, you're going to have to sacrifice a lot,   coming to rehearsals, going to performances, but  these children will develop a tremendous sense of   self confidence.

Narrator:  Roy Sakuma is an ʻukulele  teacher of long standing.

Roy Sakuma: Yeah, alright.

Well,   yeah.

Well, you know, we've been established for  about 20 years now.

I've been teaching for about   20 years.

I started very young.

Narrator:  And in the process, he's been learning  from his students about character,   temperament and conduct.

Roy Sakuma:  They're very confident.

They're not afraid  to talk to people and they have a very happy   outlook.

Narrator:  The ʻukulele has been a journey  of discovery for Roy Sakuma.

(ʻukulele strumming) Roy Sakuma:  Not very many people know this, but I was a  rascal as a youngster growing up.

Got into   a lot of little things trouble, and when I went  to Roosevelt, the counselor and principal asked   me to leave school because I was always  doing things breaking these school rules.

It was at that time, I met a gentleman by  the name of Ohta San, and he came out with   an ʻukulele recording of Sushi, which was became  a very well-known hit here in Hawaiʻi as well on   the mainland, it came into the top 100.

And  I liked that song so much, that I finally   called him and I asked him if he would teach  me how to play the ʻukulele.

And at that time,   I was just strumming the C, F and G7 chord.

He  took a look at me, and he told me, years later,   he said, You know, I wanted to conk you on the  head.

You came in with your shirt unbuttoned.

You   came in barefoot, and you know, you know you're  you weren't very presentable.

Are you relaxed?

Narrator: And what is it that a young,   mischievous boy looks up to?

Roy Sakuma:  He taught me, and he changed my whole life because  he gave me something that was really important.

I   think he guided me.

He gave me discipline, and it  was through him that I owe him a lot of credit,   because he taught me how to play the ʻukulele.

Narrator:  Roy advanced so quickly as a student that  Ohta San asked him to teach with him.

Roy Sakuma: That's all.

Okay Scott we're   going to try Laupāhoehoe, one time okay.

One time  through.

One intro.

One intro, one band.

Okay,   here we go.

Let's try this.

(ʻukulele music)   Okay, very good.

We're gonna do  that from now on in the show.

I thought that was the best thing that could  happen to me, because here was a gentleman that   guided me, that, you know, gave me a fresh start,  and now he was having me work with him in his   studio.

I realized that that's what I enjoyed  doing the most, was teaching.

1, 2, 3, 4.

(ʻukulele music) That's it.

Hang on to that chord so it   rings.

Same thing.

Hang on.

I heard that.

Narrator:  But Roy Sakuma departed from traditional  ʻukulele teaching.

His first group of   students were called The Termites.

They played  at the University of Hawaiʻi basketball games.

Their popularity prompted parents to bring in  more children who were younger and younger.

Roy Sakuma: Young students need a   new approach to music, and Roy made one.

Because  when you're dealing with a youngster, a child 4,   5, 6, 7 years old, they haven't developed yet.

You  know, they still have a lot of learning.

And when   you try to teach them a musical instrument  that is not that easy to play, and then you   compound that with music theory or with note  reading, it's, it's asking a lot of a child.

(ʻukulele music) Okay, that's the one part we got to work on.

Narrator: Roy began his idea of group teaching   with a newly invented method.

Roy Sakuma:  In the method we use, we simplify it so the child  does not have to think like that.

Everything   is already it's very it's like a language to  them.

It's so simple for them to understand,   so they can concentrate on playing the ʻukulele.

I've actually after through these years, trial and   error, I could say, you know, quite honestly,  that you could give me any musical piece,   and I could write it in my method, and I  could give it to say a good student who   has never heard that song, and they could play  you that song exactly the same way as written   in musical form.

(ʻukulele music)   Narrator: Later, when the student is older,   Roy finds that the transition to note reading  may be affected much more easily when his   method has come first.

(ʻukulele music)   The success of Roy's method  is sometimes met with a child   prodigy or two.

Roy Sakuma:  One of Dean's greatest thrills was opening  the Helen ready show at the Sheraton Waikiki.

He played several numbers with me.

Sheri-Lyn  Cabbab traveled the world with her talent.

This girl was so talented by the age of five  already, and she could do things that, you know,   no one else could do.

She had tremendously  fast fingers, and she had the smile she had,   she had one of the nicest smiles that you would  ever see.

If you were to ask me, you know,   when will a child like this come around  again?

I'd have to say one in a million.

Narrator: Social skills have also been fostered   by Roy Sakuma's musical philosophy.

A number of  his original super keikis went on to become the   student body presidents of their schools.

(music)   Roy Sakuma: I have always said this, that it doesn't have   to be ʻukulele, it can be piano, can be guitar,  can be anything, but when you learn a musical   instrument, it it really gives you an outlet.

Narrator:  But it's rare for every student to be a success  story, particularly when the parent is the willing   one, not their child.

But then… Roy Sakuma:  We motivate them.

That's part of our  job of teaching, not just teaching,   but motivation.

Motivation is  one of the keys of teaching.

(instrumental music)