Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Porou

I was always interested in ngā mahi toi as a young girl. I remember my Dad coming into school to teach my class how to draw manaia in standard four I think it was. As a hobby he had tōtara set up in the garage on two work horses. Over that period, he carved a number of figures, one for each of his daughters in addition to a number of others. Although I don’t remember my mother doing taaniko, it was something she did for a period of her life as my Dad had photos of her work. In the 1980s, with their involvement in Te Māori, the house became a hive of activity. I remember the calendars which Mum had each month professionally framed to hang around the house. There was an accumulation of photos and images in all the planning and from each city that hosted the exhibition. They took me to the last US city, Chicago, to see it first-hand. When it returned to Aotearoa, I remember spending what seemed like hours at the Wellington Museum just there in that space. Later in life I realised Dad had written early books on Traditional Māori Clothing, Taaniko and Māori Carving.

So its no wonder with this wealth of art instilled around me and the guidance from my parents that I would have such an appreciation of ngā toi Māori.

It was not until I was an adult that I had a couple of opportunities to weave something, they were tasters of the artform. I was fortunate enough to have shared a period of my life with the late Erenora Puketapu-Hetet who must have seen the envy in my eyes to weave, she was always so giving with her teachings and I am very grateful to her. Around this time I was working for Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiarangi in Wellington and created an opportunity for Veranoa Hetet-Hauwaho to offer two weaving programmes, one on raranga and one on hieke. It was through Veranoa and those programmes in 2003 that my love for weaving really took off.

My signature is colour, contemporary fibres and definately taaniko and whatu.