From Mauka & Makai

There is a phrase in Hawaiʻi that most people who grew up here know without thinking about it. From mauka to makai, which translates to from the mountains to the ocean. The two directions that orient everything — where you are, where you're going, how you give someone directions home.

We came from two different places.

Alana grew up mauka, in Kula, on the slopes of Haleakalā, where the air is cool and the land rolls out toward the horizon in every direction. Moses grew up makai, in Kailua on Oʻahu, where the ocean was the backdrop to everything — surfing, community, the particular rhythm of a town that lives close to the water.

We spent nearly a decade together in California, building a life that was full and satisfying but always oriented, in some quiet way, back toward the islands. When we moved back to Hawaiʻi three years ago — back to Kula, back to the slopes Alana grew up on — something shifted. Not all at once, but gradually, the way the light changes over Haleakalā in the late afternoon. We began paying attention differently. To the land. To the seasons. To what grows here and why. To the culture that has shaped this place across generations and continues to shape us.

Mauka Makai General grew out of that attention.

It is not a brand we designed from the outside in. It is something that emerged from daily life — from the kitchen and the workshop, the garden and the print table, the farmers' markets and the conversations with friends and neighbors who are doing similar work in their own ways. It is a shared practice between two people with different disciplines and different origin stories, finding common ground in the place they call home.

Alana brings the kitchen, the farm, the deep knowledge of Hawaiʻi's food culture that she has spent years documenting and sharing. Moses brings the studio, the workshop, the design practice that began in a surf shop in Kailua during high school and has never really stopped evolving. Together we are learning — from each other, from our community, from the ʻāina, and from the cultural touchpoints that surface in the course of living here with open eyes.

We continue to learn what it means to be here. To make things here. To share them.

Mauka Makai General is our attempt to do that work with care and intention — through editions, objects, and culinary curations released in season, documented in the MMGºPapa Helu, and grounded always in this place between the mountain and the ocean.

We are glad you found your way here.

— Moses + Alana
Kula, Maui — Spring 2026