Edwin Ushiro's "The Lifting and the Releasing"

“I learned that if you are interested enough, why not investigate a story?” says Ushiro. “My interest in the supernatural comes from living in Hawaii and having relatives in Japan. Both casually share ghost stories.”

“For example, out of nowhere the image of kids running through the night sky appeared as a vision,” Ushiro remembers. “I didn’t know what that meant. Then it came to me. My Grandma and Aunty once told me a story about a strange night when they heard loud footsteps on the roof. My Grandpa went outside to look who it was, but there was no one to be seen. He went inside the house and the footsteps continued.”

“Later they consulted a Hawaiian Minister who lived next door,” says Ushiro. “He told my relatives that this is the way the Hawaiians of the past will let you know that they were there first and that they are just letting you occupy that space. The Hawaiian minister added that they would not hear it again. And that was true.”

“I combined this story with the time I was having fun and pulling on this kid’s backpack strap and it broke,” says Ushiro. “The boy, Kalani, was so upset that he chased me across the campus until my friends stopped him. I suppose it was teenage angst. I really regret doing that. So it appears in my artwork and is hopefully released from my conscience.”

Edwin also included, to us, that it "references the night marchers of Hawaii. The spirits of warriors who continue to march through the islands as they did when they were alive.  Every island has a story of the night marchers and Maui is no exception."