by Isabel Gilbert-Palmer, August 2024
Maururongo [Ron] Te Kawa, a textile artist and educator, came to Coromandel in August to build a creative space in the Coromandel Citizens Hall with Lizzy Leckie of Artists in the Making, and the Coromandel Independent Living Trust (CILT)
It was a colour-soaked, lively, have-a-go, tell-your-story art studio for three days. Te Kawa warmly and skilfully encouraged a workshop arranged for those with barriers to participation. At the end of the workshop, a group of fledgling fibre artists created projects they were proud of.
About Te Kawa
He arrived amongst us, trailing a life full of making and creating with sewing, machines, threads, and the world of textiles, every fabric imaginable, from wool, brocade, lace, linen, silk, pieces of cotton, and his signature “sparkly stuff”.
Over the last thirty-five years, he’s screen printed and designed bags, banners, and flags, opened market stalls and clothes shops and is now busy with his home studio. His talents and work are noticed, respected, embraced, and included in Gallery Exhibitions nationally and internationally.
He’s won fashion design awards, gets private commissions, has been a costume designer for the movie ( Whale Rider), and has enjoyed artists’ residencies and related workshops.
He uses abandoned, found on the fly, foraged and gifted fabrics.
There are metres and mountains of it: rescued clothing, coats and blankets, vintage dresses, factory ends, and a hundred and one sewing notions.
This pūrākaū, he transforms into his compelling storytelling projects.
“I’m a Māori man who makes art out of unwanted things.”
Arriving here in Coromandel from Woodville (his home town ), and the wider world (a year of residencies including in Norway, the Rita Angus house in Wellington, and fresh from the Christchurch Art Gallery).
Interviewed in art magazines, radio programmes, and Maori media ( Lorde was photographed wearing one of his korowai ), Aotearoa Artists Abroad press wrote about the three-month Norwegian project he had experienced earlier this year.
Captivated by his originality, ideas, and stories, Māori’s myths, which he purposefully executes through his medium and practice, are fascinating stories to read or hear.
His current focus is making his beloved sparkly Whakapapa Quilts. He designs them using Whakapapa, Māori legends, and his imaginative stories, a dazzling, electrifying, brilliant muddle of textile and texture flaming with colour.
His nine-quilt, three-story-high solo exhibition Heavenly Bodies in Commercial Bay in Downton Auckland was phenomenal. The group saw a series of life-sized four-quilts; his legendary storytelling was breathtaking to behold.
He brought his warm, creative energy and encouragement to the group in this three-day workshop in Coromandel. He told them each was a storyteller, and they could tell theirs over the next three days.
With the most uncomplicated guidance and humour, he showed how to create simple forms, shared some of his tested sewing hacks, and set them off to the fabric mountain of reusable textiles with scissors, drawing pens for outlines, and a choice of sewing machines.
On day one, the uncertainty of the group was evident. On day two, the group settled into their original pieces and with a busy hum, with Ron always at hand to change broken needles and tangled troubles. At the end of Day three, there was a small exhibition of their work, some pants mending and a hooded Korowai out of a repurposed blanket.
