A 321-foot stained-glass mosaic mural is taking shape at Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keahole, with local artists and volunteers working toward a 2030 completion. Its design includes eight 40-foot panels set against a mineral-paint background, with themes including aloha, the ocean, the forest, water, voyagers, horticulture and aquaculture, and Indigenous culture.
Reports place the project’s commissioning in either 2018 or 2019. Big Island Now reported that the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts commissioned Waimea-based artist Calley O'Neill in 2018 around the theme of Mālama Aina. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported that the foundation unanimously awarded the project to O'Neill in 2019 from more than 300 applicants. O'Neill has described the work as rooted in aloha, a tribute to Hawaiian knowledge and culture, and a call to care for the land.
O'Neill developed the mural’s vision with local kūpuna, several of whom—including kumu Keala Ching and Hanna Kihalani Springer—appear in its panels, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported. O'Neill called them, “These are amazing wisdom carriers. They're so humble, so beautiful.” Advisor Earl Regidor urged her to show what was, what can be, and what must be again, guidance that helped shape the mural’s story.
A Story Designed to Connect
Rather than treating the panels as a simple sequence, O'Neill used the kūpuna’s guidance to connect the walls across the columns in a cycle, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported. Viewers are meant to follow the narrative from one end to the other, arriving at a panel titled “Aloha for Future Generations.” A blue line running the mural’s length represents water.
Much of the mosaic work is happening away from the airport entirely, at O'Neill's studio in Waimea, before pieces are installed on-site. The Star-Advertiser reports O'Neill now estimates the mural is 35% complete. That timeline has shifted over the years: O'Neill's own project website once projected the design and mosaic work would wrap up around 2025, while Big Island Now reported in May 2025 that she thought it would likely take until 2030 — the same completion year now cited in the latest Star-Advertiser report.
Funding Gap Remains Wide
The project has received support from the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, the Healey Foundation and the Atherton Family Foundation, among others. O'Neill said nearly $1 million had been raised, but about $1.5 million more would be needed over the next four years. The Star-Advertiser separately put the full project budget at about $2 million, including lighting and other technology. Rising material and shipping costs have added pressure, while much of the labor is being done on a volunteer basis.
How Hawaiʻi’s public-art program works
The mural sits within a broader state public-art framework. The State Foundation on Culture and the Arts assists Hawaiʻi state government sites with commissioning permanent, site-specific works. The Hawaiʻi Creative Industries Division says the Art in Public Places program, established in 1967 through the Art in State Buildings Law, designates 1% of construction costs for new public state buildings to purchase or commission artwork. That general rule does not specify the funding mix for this mural.
Art at Honolulu’s Airport
The Daniel K. Inouye International Airport says its separate Statehood Mosaic, made from student artwork from Hawaiʻi and across the nation, is mounted in Terminal 2’s Concourse E, Diamond Head breezeway, and commemorates 50 years of statehood. The student works were combined into a larger mosaic image. A different installation at Honolulu International Airport was marked by a ceremony announcing Feb. 24, 2017, as Satoru Abe Day, according to the Hawaii Department of Transportation Airports Division. It included laser-engraved wood paintings and Abe’s metal sculpture “Sunburst.” These airport examples differ in form from Kona’s commissioned stained-glass mural, whose mosaic work is being assembled largely by volunteers.
Progress reported in May 2025 included a completed mineral-paint background, finished stained-glass mosaics for the first wall, and most elements of the second wall, according to Big Island Now. Hawai‘i Public Radio reported in April 2025 that the mural would consist of eight panels, with two expected to be installed later that year.
Plans for Light and Sound
Once complete, the mural is expected to greet and bid farewell to visitors and residents right outside the airport's terminal area, where the Star-Advertiser notes it will be seen by close to 4 million airport users every year. Plans call for brass explanatory plaques and QR codes alongside the artwork, and O'Neill has an immersive audio and light component in development as well.
The planned audio piece would feature kupuna speaking, chanting and telling stories about malama. O'Neill has also proposed a light show of about 45 minutes, timed before busy nighttime flights. She said she hopes the artwork will encourage a stronger relationship with the land and with life as the mural continues toward its 2030 completion.
