Artisans of Lexus Hawaiʻi
Rooted in the idea that even the smallest detail can drive innovation, the takumi spirit has been at the core of the Lexus brand for over 30 years. Like Lexus’s takumi masters, Lexus Hawaiʻi has master artisans of its own. From chefs, to artists, to shoemakers, these team members’ diverse talents and well-honed skills are evident in their work and customer service. We are honored to showcase three Lexus Hawaiʻi team members who through their pursuit of excellence in both service and craftsmanship, embody the takumi spirit.
Meet The Artisans
Artisan
Meet Mike Hamada
Lexus Hawaiʻi | Sales Manager and Vegan Cook
“Growing up, I used to watch my mom and my grandma cooking in the kitchen,” says Mike, “it just felt natural being there.” Mike would watch them as they added ingredients and spices, usually without a recipe. “At our house, Food Network was always on,” says Mike, “playing in the background.” Over time, he learned to cook all of his family’s traditional dishes.
About seven years ago, in an effort to eat healthier, Mike’s sister introduced him to vegan cooking. That meant no meat, no dairy, no eggs. As a lifelong meat eater, Mike had to improvise to recreate some of the dishes he enjoyed. “I try to find things that have a similar texture,” says Mike, “like instead of scrambled eggs, I’ll crumble up tofu and season it. It comes out pretty close.”
For Mike, every day in the kitchen is a learning process. Through years of trial and error and tasting ingredients individually to know what will compliment a dish, Mike has been refining his craft. “When I’m cooking, if I know it’s missing the acidity and it’s an Italian dish, I usually add balsamic vinegar,” says Mike, “if I’m cooking Mexican or Spanish I’ll add lime or lemon, and if I’m cooking Japanese food, usually some kind of vinegar.”
When cooking for his family, Mike’s go-to vegan dishes include spaghetti bolognese, LA-style street tacos, and Thai and Indian curries. From loco mocos to chicken katsu, whatever Mike can imagine, he thinks up vegan ways to recreate it. “When meat eaters say they can’t tell if it’s vegan or vegetarian,” says Mike, “that’s when I know I did good.”
With all the health benefits he has gained, Mike sees being a vegan as a lifelong thing. He is driven to create new tastes, new flavors, and new concepts. And if he can share the vegan lifestyle with others through his cooking, he is happy to do that. “I enjoy making vegan dishes for my coworkers,” says Mike, “to show them that just because it’s healthy, it can still taste good.”
Meet Kaelyn Okuhata
Lexus Hawaiʻi | Content Marketing Manager and Artist
“My inspiration comes from everything around us,” says Kaelyn, “when you live in Hawaiʻi it’s hard not to be inspired.” Art has always been a part of Kaelyn’s world. When she was little, she would enter every art contest imaginable and often took home a prize. And when she went to college, she continued her art studies taking studio classes for drawing and painting.
In her work, Kaelyn often takes inanimate objects and turns them into characters, blending the ordinary with the imaginary. With her bright colors and playful cartoon-style, she makes everyday items come alive. “I play around with objects or animals and give them a bit of emotion,” says Kaelyn, “art lets you see the world in a different way.”
She keeps a handful of brushes, the tools of her craft, stored in a mason jar. Fine brushes are used for detailed work while large brushes are used for backgrounds and blending. Every brush has its own purpose, its own personality, and its own energy. “My brushes are close to my heart,” says Kaelyn, “each one holds memories of what I’ve painted before.”
In front of a canvas, when her mind is in the “zone” and free to create, time stretches and minutes turn into hours. Phone messages don’t get checked, breakfast and lunch are skipped, and the picture slowly reveals itself, layer by layer. “It’s hard to describe,” says Kaelyn, “but my mind goes blank except for the picture in front of me.”
For POW! WOW! Hawai’i 2021, Kaelyn was invited to create a 24"x24" piece to be displayed in Bishop Museum. Drawing on her love of local “mom and pop” shops, she painted an okazuya box filled with all the classic items – the hot dog, chow fun noodles, maki sushi – and turned each of the food items into a character. “When I paint, I’m really trying to capture an emotion more than anything,” says Kaelyn, “like a familiar memory that someone can feel.”
As a young artist, having her work in the Bishop Museum for the first time was a moving experience. When visiting the gallery, she’d see visitors taking photos next to her painting. As part of the nostalgia of old Hawai’i, her okazuya piece connected to people in an emotional way. “I think that’s the beauty of painting,” says Kaelyn, “you just get to that end result and you’re like, oh, wow, I did that. That’s one of my favorite moments.”
Meet Jason Kawakami
Lexus Hawaiʻi | Service Consultant and Shoemaker
“I love the sound of the sewing machine,” says Jason, “for me it’s relaxing.” As a young boy, Jason often watched his grandmother sewing. The soothing whirr of the sewing machine still reminds him of their time together. As he got older, sewing became a part of his life. When Jason couldn’t find button down shirts he liked, he would sew his own. And when he couldn’t find shoes that matched his shirts, he decided he would sew those, too.
There were no shoemaking classes in Hawaiʻi, so off to Los Angeles he went, immersing himself in an intensive 5-day shoemaking course. In the class, he learned to deconstruct a simple Adidas shoe, copy the pattern, and rebuild it using custom materials. At the end of the course, he was so proud of his sneakers that he wore them on his flight back to Honolulu.
Today, every pair of sneakers he makes is custom crafted. And every shoe is double-stitched, a painstaking technique that uses two evenly stitched lines running next to each other. It’s a part of the shoemaking process that demands a steady hand and a calm mind.
Always working to perfect his craft, Jason would practice his double-stitching on scraps of fabric, laying down line after line and curve after curve until each line was nice and tight. “I always feel stitching can improve no matter how good it looks,” says Jason, “you can always get better.”
Using a variety of leathers, canvases, and fabrics, along with his imagination and creativity, Jason spends 30 to 40 hours customizing a single pair of shoes. His favorite style, the Air Jordan 1, uses 25 different pieces, each needing to be patterned, hand cut, and stitched together in the proper order before the sole is glued on to complete the masterpiece.
Past designs include a Los Angeles Lakers-inspired purple and yellow shoe, and an over-the-top red glitter shoe that friends say looked like it was made for Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. When asked which pair of shoes are his favorite, Jason says, “it’s the last pair I made because that one is always better crafted than the ones before it.”
While wearing his custom sneakers around town, fellow sneakerheads often take notice and ask him where he bought them. Jason tells them he made them himself. To which they say, “oh, you painted them?” “Oh no I cut them from scratch and sewed them together,” Jason would reply. Surely, his grandmother would be proud.
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