The Sewell Archive is spread across three studios on the island of Maui Hawaiʻi. Two are located on the artist’s estate in Haʻikū and one (Studio 3) is located in the old Puʻunēnē Sugar Mill in Kahului. Tom Sewell created and manages the Sewell Archive.
Artist Statement
The Sugar Mill has enchanted me since 1991 when I first came to Maui for a yoga retreat. The production remnants, now cast off by the Sugar Industry - speak to the place in me which observes an exclusive beauty that currently has no value.
It is an evocation of the seemingly useless, unwanted debris of our 19th century industrial past - items which, as is, without purpose or function - are neither Art nor Design but anomalies or souvenirs of a bygone era.
My passion is to choose them again, to reassemble, reconfigure, recombine and to honor their forms, their patterns, the ragged patinas. It is a spiritual adventure, the transformation of trash to treasure, recreating on site and in the shadow of workers who sustained the Mill for generations.
Welcome to my “Art of Industry”