Thirty thousand years ago, our distant ancestors descended by torchlight into caves in Lascaux, France, to render effigies of themselves and their natural world, in personalized form, scale and color. The residue describes, not what a people saw out in their world, but how our ancestors saw their world.

Huddled in the dead end passages in those caves, are the skeletons of those who became lost clambering down into the darkness in search of a canvas. The risks artists take, and the sacrifices they make for the opportunity to create and exhibit art, testify to the value they place on the process.

In our society today, guided as we are by the principle of commodity, art is often measured as a commercial product. But while the products of art might be marketable, its motivations and essential importance within our community, stand outside economics. We need them – more than to ornament a niche or hang over a sofa – to model possibilities, formulate our realities, and experiment with our moral compass.

Here at our gallery, idspace, for 10 years we’ve created a small cave for the artists of Hawaii to explore what might be. Our motivation in creating this space was to experience the spirit and imagination of those whose processes and products mark our place and time.