"Mo'o" is Hawaiian Shapechanger Carved in Koa

Early Hawaiians had a rich mythology surrounding the sea and its denizons. And one of their feared creatures was the Mo'o (pronounced MOH-oh), which could appear on the trail as an old woman or anything else it wished, and trick you into revealing your fishing plans. Then she might choose to change into a shark or something that could attack you, and lay in wait. Better not to talk to strangers on the trail.

This sculpture attempts to catch a Mo'o as it floats over the water, poised between the shape of a woman and the shape of a fish, ready to morph all the way either way.

Although the figure was originally visualized as hovering over a horizontal ocean, once it was finished I found that being hung on a wall did not violate the relationship between figure and ground in the way I had imagined. Mo'o looked fine, so now has had a wall hanger added to her back. And, she seems to work on the wall either horizontally or vertically. She doesn't care, has an "above it all" attitude...

This wood is koa, a beautiful local wood I like to work in. She is twenty-nine by seventeen inches, and rises ten inches above her surroundings. Her base is a skewed hexagon and is twenty by twenty-eight inches, made from koa cut to about an inch and a half square. The ocean was cut from copper, patinated with ocean water (with a little ammonium chloride added to acidify things), then sealed with clear urethane. The wood waas finished with a rubbed in resin, and is now durable although not intended for outdoor exposure.

The back of the base is marked in ink, " "Mo'o" HOWARD -99 ".

The sculpture is in excellent condition.

"Mo'o" . . . . . . . . . .$ 1100