By Devin Levesque
Waking up before the sun rises, driving to the dock, jumping on the boat and setting off just as the sun peaks over the mountain sets the scene for a beautiful day.
Speeding off on the glassy surface with no breeze and just the splash of ocean ricocheting off the boat blasts you with a salty smell. As the day goes on, the guys catch mahi after mahi and throw them onto the boat. The fish seem surreal with their colors, size and occasional twitch of a tail.
But what makes these fish so special to Shasta Domen?
Domen takes these prize catches and prints them. “It’s so awesome when kids learn the art and craft of fishing or spearfishing… like when they shoot their first manini or bring up their first papio,” she explained. “It might be small, but so important. Even if they take their print, fold it up and tuck it away, they’ll always have the memory of where they shot it, how old they were, even what the weather, water or reef was like.”
A Maui girl born and raised, she has been involved with the ocean and art her whole life. Ever since she was a small child, she was in the water being pulled on a boogie board with a mask so she could watch her father dive from above. She met her husband, Pat, who is a spear fisherman, when she was in high school and they’ve been together ever since.
“Being with a waterman almost half my life, I’ve learned what a huge part the ocean plays in our daily lives,” Shasta said. “Family, fun, food, and in my case, doing my part to help with the finances, since I’m a stay-at-home mom.”
Shasta got into fish printing when her brother-in-law took his 89-pound ulua to a friend to get it printed.
While delivering the fish, her husband told her that she could do this for a living; she loved art and was involved with it her whole life, so she could easily find which medium to use.
When her brother-in-law shot a 9-pound mū (which is big for that type of fish), she got started on her painting practice. She learned little tricks and eventually made her own style of fish printing.
“I like to use a thin outline on specific parts of the fish to emphasize the eyes, gills, scales, bolts that you sometimes only see in the water,” Shasta said. “I also only print on black fabric because I love working with acrylics and I like how the acrylics make everything pop off the black. It’s untraditional. Traditionally, gyotaku (fish prints) were printed on rice paper with black ink. If you know me, I’m not the traditional type.”
Shasta’s method of printing is unique. She takes the initial print by blending basic colors of the fish and lets that dry.
Once the first layer is done, she goes back and paints the finer details of the fish: the eye, the lines on the fins, varying colors the fish will have in certain areas and highlighting areas on the gills or scales to create a sense of depth.
Sometimes, she tries to recreate the fish as if they were still alive in the ocean. The fish are returned quickly so the customer can eat their catch, but the final product may take weeks to finish.
He‘e (octopus) prints are tedious. He‘e can stick to the fabric and dry in different areas, unless it’s “lomi-ed” (massaged, usually with Hawaiian salt) thoroughly.
“I try to make them as detailed as possible,” Shasta explained. “I’ll spend hours detailing to make it look camouflaged.”
Fish prints are unique to everyone, but Shasta likes to use her own style; she will always try to stay true to the colors of the fish, but if the clients have a request, she will fulfill it. But if she doesn’t feel right, she won’t even start.
“I don’t ever attempt to sit and start a print unless I have a good vibe about it,” she said. “If I’m feeling rushed or unsure about coloring, or anything, or if my kids need me, I won’t even attempt it. They come first, it also wouldn’t be fair to give back a print that seemed, and looked rushed or half-assed.”
Referring to her first daughter, Shasta said, “It’s hard being a stay-at-home mom and working from home. She, all children, can be unpredictable, if I had planned to paint for a couple hours during the day, my daughter would choose to not take a nap, touch things she’s not supposed to, or take off her diaper and run around the house. It became harder to dedicate time towards printing and harder to use the time that I did have, efficiently. I learned how to balance things the best I could once I fully recovered from my second pregnancy.”
But when it comes to this small family nothing can bring them down, especially when her girls get to bond with their mother.
“The girls get to see what I do. I’m home [and] ‘mommy paints fish,’” Shasta said. “I’ll set up paints for them while I do small prints. My oldest is four and she loves to paint because she sees mommy painting.”
A piece of advice from the mother, wife and painter: “Don’t not print your fish because you think you’ll catch something bigger. Small fish, ugly fish, your first fish—print it.”
