Moe is to sleep, to die or to beget.
Six years ago Akuhata-Brown was in a state of mourning and depression and living with substance abuse and domestic violence.
“One day I looked in the mirror and didn’t like that person. I wanted to change that. I wanted to remember who I was brought up to be.”
She enrolled in social work studies at the wananga which took her into mauri oho, a state of beginning to engage.
“I began to succeed. That state was mauri ora — feeling well, successful. I wanted to go back to something I loved so I began my journey in raranga.”
Her woven piece is a taonga she will give to her teenage daughter.
“The atua my piece represents is Hinetitama (dawn maiden). Every morning the dawn maiden adorns us with her korowai. It’s a reminder to my daughter that each day is a new day.
“The sun will always rise.”
A range of motifs used in various arrangements within circles that represent family members within a circular painting known as a tondo in Western art make up Sue-Ann Blandford’s work Whakapapa.
The designs within each of the five circles represent parents, siblings and children. The patterns are stories of events in their lives.
“I used earthy colours because we are down-to-earth,” says Blandford.
Outside the patterned, interlocking yet independent circles is a “concretey colour”.
In the right hand circle that represents her parents is a motif called puhoro, movement, which relates to her Norwegian father’s migration to New Zealand.
To create the patterns Blandford sketched the motifs on transparencies and used an overhead projector to beam the outlines on to the canvas.
