The Road Less Traveled—Destination: Diane Renchler’s Toulouce Gallery
By Jessica Kirkwood
When traveling up the Hamākuā coast I often I often turn makai (towards the ocean) off the main highway, just seven miles north of Hilo, in favor of the old Māmalahoa’s four-mile scenic route. Each time I venture down the cracked and winding road in anticipation of the lush, botanic canopies and collapsed Onomea Arch, I pass the same Buddhist Hongwanji and the same mountain-fed stream that flows below the same mossy wooden bridge. I glance to my left at the same patch of thick, tenacious bamboo, and then to my right at the same weathered, hill-top cemetery. Soon after, I pass the same antique art gallery with the same bright lavender lettering ‘Toulouce’ with the same orange and white calico cat painted on the side. Then I tell myself the same old thing, “You know, you really should check out that place some day.”
The gallery’s exterior is so vibrant, so full of charm and character, so perfectly out of place, and so hard to pass by unnoticed, and somehow I had always done just that—passed it by. So the last time I took the road less traveled, I pulled over, and stopped in to see what treasures and stories were held within the walls of this seemingly forgotten, if not colorful, gallery.
Upon entering, I was greeted by an elegantly attired woman with lively hazel eyes and wispy, grayish-blonde hair. Meet Diane Renchler—the owner of the Toulouce Gallery. She is graceful, sweet, and unbeknownst to me at the time, open and willing to unabashedly share herself with me.
She began by recounting one of her earliest memories—her four-year-old self sitting on the cool kitchen floor of a friend’s apartment while visiting her grandmother. “My friend’s mom put some newspapers down on the tiles and placed a set of water color paints in front of me. I remember thinking it was the most exciting thing I had ever seen,” she smiles, “And I still do.”
Growing up in Nevada, Diane received a Fine Arts Scholarship and eventually earned her Master’s Degree in Expressive Arts at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She dabbled in the mediums of acrylic, oil, printmaking, glass, and sculpture.
At twenty-one, Diane became a flight attendant, where she traveled to far-off destinations including Japan, South America, Israel, Europe, and Australia, and eventually bringing American troops into Vietnam during the war. The one grounding constant in her then moving life were her watercolor paints, “I carried my kit with me everywhere. They dried quickly and were so easy to travel with,” she says.
One particular flight touched down in Waikīkī, where she found solace from the gloomier and more lurid Vietnam conditions by painting the calming, tropical backdrops. Delving artistically, emotionally, and even physically into the soothing Pacific waters, she promised herself she would someday return.
Between that ‘someday’ and her current vocation and milieu, if you will, she has lived multiple lives. From owning a stained glass gallery in Aspen, Colorado where the hedonistic lifestyle of the 1970s eventually wore thin, to receiving life-threatening toxic poisoning from working with stained and leaded glass. At another daunting point along her path, her sole pleasure was found in painting the portraits of girls, both young and old, while living at a women’s shelter in the slums of Harlem, New York. Spiraling health problems ultimately caused her to take a step back, and then a big step within—a ‘bout of depression turned inner journey’ as she calls it.
“After a few really shaking experiences, even after going back to arts school, I realized that the knowledge of how to create my art was within me all along. I was looking outside myself for praise, recognition, and guidance from others, instead of looking within.”
The fear of failure had been guiding her aimlessly for so long that when she suddenly stopped long enough to reflect, she realized just how clear her own answers actually were. What it took was getting back to the basics: laying out some newspaper, opening a set of watercolor paints, and finding the courage to dive in and begin.
In 1995, Diane sold her house along with all of her belongings and hopped a flight across the Pacific with the destination Hawai‘i Island. Once on Hawaiian soil, she invested in an aquamarine Volkswagon van. “I knew that if I bought a plot of land I would dedicate myself to maintaining it instead of painting everything I had,” she says. That VW van, now indefinitely parked in her driveway, covered with moss and memories of a past life, became her home for her first four years on-island.
“Unemployed was sometimes a shaky place, yet it allowed me the time to travel the perimeter of the island countless times. I painted nearly every setting Hawai‘i Island has to offer,” she says. Once her van was full of paintings, she’d store them under friend’s houses across the island—with hopes of someday reclaiming them.
She eventually began selling her art at the Hilo and Pāhoa farmers’ markets, where she accumulated a small fan base. One day, a woman who, over time, had bought several of her paintings peered into Diane’s van and asked where she was living.
“I didn’t know what to say—I didn’t even know where I was going to park my van that night!” she laughs. The woman, inspired by the nomadic artist, offered a place in Onomea for Diane to more permanently set up camp. “I had driven my Volkswagon by this spot many times before. I think I even camped out here one night.”
That property is now Diane’s home, art gallery, and ever-maturing Eden of papaya, avocado, rolenia, coconut, banana, mango, pineapple, and taro patches, “This building was abandoned and run down, and the land was completely overgrown. It was awesomely scary at first. It took over a year of non-stop renovations,” she says, “But this was the exact space I had envisioned for myself.”
The Toulouce Gallery is named after her cat (and long-time VW companion). And her cat, well, he was named after the renowned French Impressionist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
“It wasn’t until after I had finished painting the word ‘Toulouce’ on the outside of the gallery that I realized I had misspelled the artist’s name,” she laughs. Diane thought it cheeky and so she left it. The original blooper still stands today, merely adding to the gallery’s unique character.
The old, wooden plantation home is classy and cozy with an undeniably French feel. It features more than 20 local artists whose works include: painted gourds, clay sculptures, photography, jewelry, blown glass, essential oils, and vintage clothing.
Since those distant VW days, Diane is now an award-winning painter whose art has been shown at the Hilton Waikoloa Gallery, the Woodshop Gallery in Honomū, Waipio Valley Art works, Volcano Art Center, Dream’s of Paradise Gallery in Hilo, Trudy’s International Art in Kailua-Kona, and was recently featured as an artist at the Plein Air Paintures of Hawai‘i (PAPOH), a juried show in Kailua-Kona.
Playing with the element of water, above all, brings the most balance to her life, as she paints with it, and plays in it nearly every morning. “I think I’ve swam off nearly every coastline of this island. It’s probably the real reason I moved here. I used to swim in the 55-degree Boston Bay, so this is much nicer,” she laughs. “I think I’m addicted to water; it makes me high.”
Just as she’s about to close the gallery for the day, a couple visiting from Japan wander in. Their camera had run out of batteries just before snapping a shot of ‘Akaka Falls, “Do you have any pictures of waterfalls,” the woman asked, desperate for a specific memento of the island. “Yes, a few actually,” Diane says, flipping through a basket of matted prints, “Here you go. This is my favorite one of ‘Akaka. I set up my easel and painted it just a few years ago.” The woman smiles, she seems relieved.
My eyes wander around at the brightly colored pastel walls and focus on Diane’s many works, some of which include: “Old Onomea Road,” “Hapuna,” “Sunrise at Mauna Kea,” “Hāmākua Coastline,” “Opihikao,” “Pohoiki,” and “Wahine at Rainbow Falls.” I smile, knowing the paintings adorning the Toulouce Gallery walls quite literally tell the story of one woman’s audacity to take the plunge and trust in the pursuit of her childhood passion.
Contact artist Diane Renchler: DianeRenchler-ArtGallery.com, 808.936.0915
Contact writer Jessica Kirkwood: jkirkwood23 AT hotmail DOT com
