Holo Holo Bolo did not begin in a workshop. It began with my head down and my eyes on the sand — on a quiet stretch of shoreline, looking for the one shell with character among a thousand ordinary ones. For much of my adult life, shells have been the thread running through everything: where I wander, what I notice, what I carry home. This is the story of how a lifelong love became a craft.
Chapter One
The spark
It started the way these things do — quietly, without a plan. A few shells in a pocket. Then a bowl of them at home. Then a worn copy of the Compendium of Seashells read for hours on end, and the slow realization that I was no longer a person who liked shells. I was a collector. I came to see the shoreline as a place that gives, if you're patient enough to look.
Chapter Two
The gathering
The collecting became a practice. Most of what I gather comes from the shores of Hawaiʻi, where I live, with more found on shelling trips to Florida, to Vietnam — a place I return to every year, as my wife is from Hanoi — and to other shores around the world. Hands full of shells, trays of finds curing and conditioning, jars and shelves filling up. Beachcombing became the closest thing I have to meditation: head down, mind quiet, slowed all the way to the rhythm of the waves.
"The beauty in nature is often hidden. You have to be patient enough to find it — and willing to do the work to reveal it."
Chapter Three
The craft awakens
A collection wants to become something. First came the simple pieces — shell leis and necklaces, wind chimes, small works of shell art, even "love" spelled out in shells. My wife sorting trays alongside me; the two of us at the bench, turning a pile of the ocean's castoffs into something to wear. It was rough and honest and it was the beginning of everything.
Chapter Four
Woven into life
Somewhere along the way the shells stopped being a hobby and became simply how I move through the world. I wear them everywhere — on planes, on the road, at festivals, traveling abroad. My wife in a shell necklace at golden hour. Shells at our wedding on the beach. I don't take a break from this life; it comes with me. I think people feel that. You can't fake a thing you actually live.
Chapter Five
Mastering the art — Holo Holo Bolo
Years of collecting led, finally, to the wheel. Holo holo is the Hawaiian spirit of going out to wander with no fixed destination — and that is exactly how these pieces are born. Most begin as ʻopihi, the Hawaiian limpet, often dull and beaten up when I find them. With patience I sort each batch, clean and condition them, then tumble, polish, and wet-drill each shell by hand on my lapidary wheels until a quiet, glowing beauty no one expected rises to the surface.
The bolo tie felt right — a piece with roots in the paniolo, Hawaiʻi's own cowboys, where a man's gear was meant to carry meaning. Ocean and Western, in one piece. I compose and assemble each one by hand here on the Big Island in Kailua-Kona. Every finished piece carries its own story and can never be made twice. When you wear one, a little of that quiet shoreline morning comes with it.
— Aaron