Local artist Luke-Thomas Tokimasa Henderson just won a major national award for his artwork series that draws from the ancient and contemporary kite-fishing tradition practiced in Hawai‘i and across the Pacific.
“I just started crying,” Henderson said after being notified he received the award. “It’s really important for me to reiterate how grateful I am to have the support system that I have. … So I was overcome with emotions because it felt like all those sacrifices I've seen people do for me were coming into fruition.”
Henderson was one of five recipients who were winners — Merryn Omotayo Alaka, Japheth Asiedu-Kwarteng, Demetri Broxton and Vivian Chiu — of the first Specific Craft Prize for Emerging Artists. The namesake prize went to Sharif Bey.
Each recipient of the emerging artist prize receives a $10,000 award plus mentorship opportunities.
Launched in 2025, the Spector Craft Prize was created by the Spector Family Foundation to support craftmakers in their careers through awards, mentorship and community building.
Henderson won for his Hoʻolele Lupe series. He constructed the kites using paper he grew and harvested, such as wauke. He formed the sheets by hand, weaving together Western and Eastern fiber traditions. The images on the paper were created through a watermarking process.
The 24-year-old artist said the piece was inspired while he was on a surfing trip on Hawai‘i Island a couple years ago when he saw a group of fisherman using trash bags to cast their fishing lines out to sea.
After doing research, he found petroglyphs that referenced kite fishing that was procured in the exact same spot he was surfing.
A once popular practice, Hawaiian kite fishing, or ho‘olele lupe, faded after Western contact in the late 1700s. Although it was never banned by missionaries, it was deemed a pagan practice, according to Henderson.
“I was trying to figure out with these projects that I was trying to see what happened in that rupture, and how we could use these ancient tools in our modern challenges that we face today, regarding climate change and sea level rise,” he said.
Henderson said he’s going to use some of the money to rent his own art studio to further his career as a local artist and to buy his first ever suit to wear for the Spector Craft Summit.
His advice to other artists looking to pursue a career in art is to never give up.
“I avoided art for the majority of my life because I perceived that I wasn’t talented enough to draw and paint, and I didn’t know that there were other areas that you could pursue,” he said.
