Iolani Puu Kolenc

I now have an "integrated name: that is legal: Iolani Puu Kolenc

Born Annette Marie Puʻu — Walking These Days as ʻAnakē, for a bit, until the return to the ancestral names came about in 2026.

At UCSB I went by my birth name: Annette Marie Puu

At Cal Arts I went through a name change for my healing Journey and my partnership (entrapment) name became Misa Miele Mandigo Kelly. I also exhibited visual arts as Dylan & Friends as I worked through the infinity loop of recovering from deep trauma with a multifaceted wonder order. I was not self-aware at the time that the relationship was what would become a 33 year relationship of what is called coercive control, with someone whose dark traits were the opposite of how I think and acted. I used to think "opposite attracts", but a more accurate assessment would be predators are conditioneed/born with the ability recognize their prey - their targets.

Each name a thread in the weaving.

Each name an offering.

But now, I am fully Iolani Puu Kolenc.

So, that means, shedding the past, the sacred direction of the south in some traditions, I have shed those names, shed perhaps even those vocations, and stand in a big question mark knowing what I am, some of my ancient roots, and the relevance of these stories.

I was an artist, award winning, internationally recognized and I was other things in a polymathic way to pay the bills.

Now I am a warrior, in this moment, having the courage to face what arises, and in this moment, pause and lean into the fresh fall air, the sound of the crows, the light growing brighter.

me ke aloha,

Iolani

America of the mixed-race Hawaiian creole from my father's lineage: many places and lands, and the beautiful alpine and farming roots of the Slovenes, this beautiful diaspora.