ACRS Youth Explore Hawaiian Kapa-Making with Artist Stewart Wong
SEATTLE – Twenty students participating in ACRS’s Youth Summer Program experienced the art and tradition of Hawaiian kapa-making during a hands-on workshop with Seattle artist Stewart Wong.
The students represented three ACRS Youth Development programs: Pathways to Our Future, Lotus Circle and QOLOR. During the demonstration, Wong showed students how kapa is made from the inner bark of wauke or paper mulberry. Beginning with the raw bark, he demonstrated how the fibers are beaten and transformed into a finished cloth.
Students then had the opportunity to create their own designs by painting on pieces of finished kapa.
For Wong, sharing the practice with young people is also about helping preserve cultural knowledge and strengthening connections between people and the natural world.
“We can teach younger generations about the importance of these traditions and the role they serve in our daily lives,” Wong said. “It helps us connect to the land and understand why it is so important that we cultivate, nurture and carry on stewardship.”
Originally from Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, Wong is a Kanaka Maoli mixed-media and public artist whose work explores culture, identity, history and resilience. He served as an artist-in-residence at the Burke Museum at the University of Washington, where he presented public kapa-making demonstrations in 2025, sharing the history and cultivation of wauke while demonstrating how kapa is beaten, dyed, drawn and printed.
Wong’s work is also on permanent display at the Wing Luke Museum, where he collaborated with artist Ron Ho on Our Heritage, Our Journey, Our Dreams in the museum’s Ford Foundation Community Hall. His stamped and printed kapa cloth is featured in the museum’s Ten Thousand Things exhibition, on view through spring 2027. Wong is also the commissioned artist for the Chinese American Legacy Artwork Project, a planned installation near Seattle’s waterfront commemorating the Chinese immigrants forcibly expelled from the city during the anti-Chinese riot of February 7, 1886.
The kapa workshop was part of ACRS’s free, five-week Youth Summer Program for Seattle Public Schools students. For the past four summers, Queer Opportunities to Lead, Organize and Reflect (QOLOR) has offered healthy relationships groups for LGBTQIA+ and QTBIPOC middle school youth and allies. This summer, ACRS also launched Lotus Circle, an Asian girls group that creates a sense of belonging for Asian femme middle school students while providing education about healthy relationships and gender-based violence prevention.
The workshop also gave students from Pathways to Our Future (PTOF) an opportunity to step away from their summer internships and join the younger participants for a shared cultural and creative experience. PTOF is ACRS’s yearlong college and career readiness program for high school students, who also earned community service hours through the activity.
“This kapa art workshop was really special because we were able to bring youth from all three programs together,” said Leslie Stewart, ACRS Youth Development Director. “The youth were able to have cultural snacks and lunch together, which deepens their pride for our unique traditions and delicious foods, while bringing us closer together in community during challenging times.”
