2022 – present (ongoing)

My materially crafted practice takes place both as tauira, and with tauira; tauira is a word that means student, pupil, and apprentice, just as it means sample, model, or example. The samplers articulate the material potential of incorporating a multiplicity of fibre techniques from across my ancestral lines into a single fabric.
These tauira express my learning-through-making, embodying
the multiplicity of meaning held in their name. They hold space
as guidestones towards future possibilities, and are records of ‘happenings’ experienced and held in the futurepresentpast.

The tauira works honour my Nana and her ‘scale’ of making: her lace pieces, which formed the borders or edges of other textile objects, and the collection of samplers through which Nana practiced her craft. They connect me to potential histories of sampler-making and learning from my grandmothers. Each piece gives me space to learn, and to continue to be a learner. With each new tauira, I explore how the threads blend and catch, the effects of tension made by each stone weight, the lightness and heaviness of each thread, and the pull of my own hands where the whatu-weaving might be tangling or unbalanced — and how to bring it all into balance again.

He Tauira, Ngā Tauira is comprised of an ongoing series of tauira, samplers, ‘test weavings.’ Most are made with 50 whenu/warp threads in a variety of materials and techniques.
An accompanying, hand-bound book (stab-binding with hand-twined aho) details the individual tauira — materials,
making, and the story within each piece.

Dimensions ranging from 50 x 150mm to 550mm.

Whenu/warp materials: muka (gathered in Taranaki and Tāmaki), wool (handed down from family members and friends), gathered plant dyes

Aho/weft materials: muka, wool, tī kouka, pingao, harakeke, puha, rimurimu/seaweed, tanekaha bark, angiangi, driftwood, tōtara, pōhutukawa, ; gathered plant dyes (angiangi, tanekaha bark, yarrow flowers/leaves, Queen Anne’s lace flowers, kawakawa, hīnau leaves)

Techniques include: whatu, plain weave, twill weave, māwhitiwhiti, whakapae, pāheke, lace-knitting, pulled-threadwork

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Shown in solo exhibition Mending the Kupenga,
Te Wai Nauru Kākā Gallery, June–July 2024

A prior iteration also shown in solo exhibition Whatuwai,
Nathan Homestead Pukepuke Galleries, October–November 2023