We were lucky to catch up with Esther Hi’ilani Candari recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Esther Hi’ilani, thanks for joining us today. What was one of the most important lessons you learned in school? Why did that lesson stick with you?

One of the turning points in my college education was the first time I realized I was probably going to fail a class. After maintaining a near-perfect GPA for three years, I took a music theory lab that was a nightmare for me and would have taken hours every day to master. It was too far into the semester to drop it so I accepted I was probably going to fail and that failing a 1 credit lab was much better than wasting dozens of hours that should be spent on the classes that would support my chosen career. It was a paradigm shift for me because I had to untangle my identity as a straight-A student from my meaning and purpose as a learner. From that moment forward, it helped me to shift my mindset from completion to the rubric standard or above as the purpose of my class work to seeing my education as a process for gaining, maintaining, and building the skills that would allow me to pursue my dreams.

Esther Hi’ilani, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

While I would describe myself as primarily a fine artist, I also feel deeply called to being a connector and community builder. How that manifest has varied over the years, but currently, I fulfill that life calling through my work building out a local gallery, Writ & Vision, into a thriving and community-oriented business, as well as through my work curating and editing various art books and publications, particularly Wayfare Magazine and my new ARTbook Series. With my artwork, I connect my collectors with the spiritual stories and ideas that are most meaningful to them by situating those topics in cultural aesthetics and symbols that have not been used before due to the history of white supremacy in Christianity. With my community work, I connect artists with each other and opportunities that allow them to tell their stories through increasingly effective channels.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

One of my main ventures right now is co-directing Writ & Vision gallery and bookstore with its founder, Brad Kramer. Brad invited me to show at the gallery a few years ago, during which time we became good friends and realized our skills complemented each other’s in the workplace. After my exhibit wrapped, Brad invited me to work for him on an occasional contractual basis, and I countered that I was at a point in my career where I wanted more than that. So, I offered to buy in as a partner through sweat equity, which is what I ultimately did.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

One of the things I have learned to view as the most critical and valuable across my work are relationships with people whether that be patrons, clients, or peers. When it comes to growing the audience of my business ventures, I have found one of the most effective channels is through partnering with like-minded individuals or organizations who have greater reach and marketing budgets than mine but who need the value of my work and personal connections. Collaboration has provided opportunities and stability to my small business ventures in ways that would have taken years to build on my own. In return, I have been able to offer large organizations cultural value and fast turn around high-quality products that would have been harder for them to access on their own due to the immobility of larger structures.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.hiilanifinearts.com or www.writandvision.com
• Instagram: @hiilanifinearts @writandvision
• Facebook: Esther Hi’ilani Candari Artist