With Endemic Birds behind her, Berger has returned to her first love: abstract art. One of her abstract pastels, which recently sold at the Volcano Garden Arts gallery, also shows an ‘alala—but a very different ‘alala from those in Endemic Birds. This one is a bold, fierce bolt of black, as if the spirit of the ‘alala has been released from its body. “I put the birds in the abstracts now, which I never used to do,” she says. “It’s a euphoric experience, especially with pastel, because pastel is more instantaneous—it’s so fast. I don’t have to dwell on it, whereas with watercolor I have to put all the layers on it in order to get that rich color.”

Last November Berger entered an abstract pastel called “Searching for Alternatives” in the East Hawai‘i Cultural Center’s annual Fall Arts Festival. The State Foundation for Culture and the Arts purchased it, which “kind of gave me my license to continue with [abstract art],” she says. “I’m so glad, because that’s really what I like to do.”

Though her style has changed, her message hasn’t. “‘Searching for Alternatives,’” Berger says, “involves two ‘i‘iwi and three small, white eggs. One ‘i‘iwi is confronting a black ball of squiggly lines that equal confusion in a changing environment.”