The Aloha Motel

Not much is known about The Aloha as there was only 1 color photo of the place for reference. Nonetheless, this was a really fun one. In the true spirit of collaboration, David agreed to let me make the frame first. Typically, for this project, I would not start the frame build at all, including design and/or material choice, until Coop had delivered the completed piece to me. This one was going to be the opposite.

I spent my honeymoon in Maui and I was captivated by the woodwork and availability of tropical woods on the Islands. I almost used native Hawaiian hardwoods for this but then thought, this isn’t Hawaii, this is Vegas and everything is fake. I chose this beautiful Redheart and cut grooves into it to mimic some VERY basic carving. I also wanted to give this a slight ‘80s appeal since that was the final heydays of this almost forgotten motel.

For the mat, I chose Spalted Hackberry. This molded wood paid tribute to the small rock facade wall of the manager’s office. I glossed the entire frame and mat, the only one with this treatment, and delivered it to David. He immediately loved it and knew what he was gonna do. A short time later, The Aloha was complete.

The electric Hombre of the mountains fits the theme, and the airplane (maybe Janet Airlines) really adds to the Hello-Goodbye of the piece.