By Armando Dahan
The inaugural Red Road Art Tour is coming to Lower Puna this fall. Award-winning painter, art teacher, and retreat facilitator Abbie Rabinowitz is leading efforts to unite artists and residents in its creation and spark a creative resurgence in the area.
I met Rabinowitz at her home in Seaview. Upon entering her home studio, I was greeted by arrays of paintbrushes, drawing materials, and knick-knacks, the sight of which sent me back to my art major days. On the opposite wall, a gallery of her most recent works hung ready to be studied and admired. Shelves stacked with canvases line the upper walls. It’s a great space for an art studio, full of natural light and ocean breeze.
“I like the idea of connecting with the community through artistic, creative endeavors,” she says, “[and of] creating opportunities for artists to share and sell their work.”
Nowadays, making a living as a full-time artist is hard. Especially in Puna. “I’m always amazed when somebody loves my artwork enough to offer hundreds or thousands of dollars for it,” Rabinowitz says. An emotional connection, she believes, is the main reason people buy art.
But for more connections and art sales to occur, people need to know about the talented artists living here and the types of art they create. “Commercial galleries are closing,” she says, “and there’s no connection around a gallery space either.”
Puna has a long-standing tradition of welcoming artists from all over. And how could it not? With its lush greenery, coastal vistas, and salt air, the Red Road offers more inspiration than any one artist could use up.
Dedicated venues for showing art in Lower Puna, however, are scarce. There are few opportunities for artists to exhibit their work or for the public to view it. As these opportunities have thinned out, much of the creative life that once spilled into public view has retreated behind studio doors.
She’s hoping the Red Road Art Tour will help fill that void while encouraging artists to come out, engage, and connect with the community and visitors from outside, fostering sustained relationships.
Back at her home studio, Rabinowitz shows me her most recent collection: a series of color studies on slabs of oriented strand board, an industrial building material she repurposed as her canvases. She has painted each layered wood strand individually–hundreds of them–and the effect is mesmerizing. Standing in front of them, I caught myself doing exactly what she’d described: forming an emotional connection with the work.
These are the types of connections that Rabinowitz hopes to foster through the Red Road Art Tour. The idea for the art tour has been circling her mind for several years. The aftermath of the 2018 Kīlauea eruption, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the area’s struggle to recoup and rebuild delayed its inception.
This time, she’s determined to succeed. Tattooer and business owner Kristin Lowery and fiber and multimedia artist Rachel Orr have joined her to handle the nuts and bolts, applications, jurying, and logistics.
The inaugural Red Road Art Tour is scheduled for Saturday, November 21, 2026. According to the tour’s website, the route will stretch along the Red Road corridor from Kalapana to Pohoiki, with stops in Kaimū, Kikala-Keokea, Kēhena, Puna Palisades, Seaview, the mile marker 16 and 17 neighborhoods, and ʻOpihikao.
Mindful that not every artist wants the public in their home studio, the organizers will form huis—shared studio groups —at venues along the Red Road, such as SPACE, Uncle Robert’s, and Kalani.
Submissions will be juried by the team to ensure all items are handmade–nothing prefabricated–and fees will go toward promotion and signage. “We want to make sure it’s a quality event,” Rabinowitz says.
“We are all volunteering our time,” she says. “It’s something we are committed to doing for the community.”
Artist applications are open July 15 through August 31, with a $50 application fee. To apply, visit: https://www.redroadarttour.com/join-us/
Armando T. Dahan
Armando T. Dahan is a writer, creative writing coach, and marketer who helps brands tell their stories online and inspires writers to tell their own. His background spans freelance, nonprofit, and corporate work. In March 2025, he traded California for life on the Big Island.