»Pohutukawa continued from over

• A revered pohutukawa at Cape Reinga, the and pendants with a raw natural style that has northernmost tip of , is reputed to quickly made them highly coveted items in have been there for more than 800 years. The fashion circles around the world from Barneys site is sacred to Māori people as the departure in New York to fashion designer Paul Smith in 1 February — 12 March 2014 point of the spirit from this world to their the UK. Nga Waiata’s jewels can also be found traditional homeland of Hawaiiki. This locally in design stores and private collections windswept pohutukawa marks the spot known throughout the country. Recycled pohutukawa as Te Rerenga Wairua ‘the place of leaping’. It is an important part of her practice - as she says is from here that the spirits of the dead begin “the rich red wood works beautifully with dark their journey leaping off the headland and crystals…”. Nga Waiata works from her home Precious climbing down the gnarled, twisted roots of studio in Napier. the , descending into the underworld for their return journey. The Pohutukawa cabinet draws its inspiration from: • A boat knee form. Nga Waiata ~ Jeweller • A swing hanging from a tree. Born in 1962 in Hastings, Nga Waiata has followed various creative pathways and following • A coffin or casket signifying death. a long career in fashion and has, for the past 4 • The twisted roots of the pohutukawa reaching Works by Tim Wigmore in collaboration­ with years, been focusing on jewellery as a creative for the ground, perhaps leading to the under­ and commercial venture. She has developed a world as in the story of the Place of Leaping. Brian Flintoff • ­Lyonel Grant • Veranoa Hetet ­ unique range of crystal and native timber rings Graeme Priddle • Nga Waiata • ­Chris Weaver

Rimu Stories Tim Wigmore’s Precious Cargo project stems from Rimu • Not only is the foliage of young reminis- his research into the historical uses and physical cent of a feathery seaweed, but the red sap is Rimu and Ceramic Clay Cutter characteristics of our native trees and and his by Chris Weaver said to have come from the blood of Tunuroa, Rimu Cabinet and Puriri Cabinet a dreaded water monster. exploration of Māori myth and legend. As an artist by Tim Wigmore 2012 • The demigod Māui, wanting to discover the and furniture designer Tim Wigmore was drawn to secret of fire, visited the goddess Mahuika. She Māori Name: Rimu or puaka and often in its gave him one of her fingernails, which the waka huia form. “I see it as an uniquely New doubled up form rimurimu contained the fire. To trick her, Māui deliber- Common Name: Red Pine Zealand perspective on the idea of jewellery or treasure ately put out the flame and returned for Botanical Name: Dacrydium cupressinum another fingernail. He repeated this until or even tool boxes. They both conceal and reveal — Rimu is a slow-growing tree, eventually Mahuika, realising she had been duped, cast an idea which is also inherent in furniture design. attaining a height of up to 50 meters. Its lifespan the last nail down and set the underworld is approximately 800 to 900 years. The leaves alight. Fire became implanted in kaikōmako, For Precious Cargo Tim approached six renowned are small and awl-shaped. The seeds are rimu and tōtara. Since then, fire has been makers and asked them identify a tool emblematic dispersed by birds such as the kakapo, which eat made by rubbing sticks from these trees in the fleshy scale and pass the seed on in their grooves of māhoe or patatē wood. of their practice. “I wanted to collaborate with other droppings. One of the most prized timber trees, Rimu is well known for its strength and Chris Weaver ~ Potter artists and find out which tools were precious to them, durability and often used in furniture, although Chris Weaver was born in Te Awamutu in the which tool was worthy of its own special case.” The very little is milled these days. Much of New of New Zealand and grew up in the Zealand’s rimu has been logged and in 1999 South Island. His first memory of clay is as a Precious Cargo collaborators are; musician & carver commercial logging was halted on the South young boy, finding some when his father was Brian Flintoff,carver ­ Lyonel Grant, weaver Veranoa Island’s West Coast, the location of the last digging out steps in a bank down at the bottom remaining large rimu forests. of their property in Nelson. He made his first Hetet, wood turner Graeme Priddle, jeweller Nga Rimu Use pots then and has been obsessed by clay ever Waiata and potter Chris Weaver. Wigmore has • The juicy red cup that holds the seed was eaten since. He has earned a reputation as one of New ­designed and made a cabinet for each of these six Zealand’s most accomplished ceramic table- by Māori. tools, predominantly constructed from the same • The resinous heartwood was split into slivers ware artists. His signature rimu timber handled and tied in bundles for torches. ‘Iron’ tea pot has become an icon of New material as the tool. Each cabinet, in its design Zealand design and Chris’s work is represented • Used in beer brewing by Captain Cook. in private collections and museums throughout and finish, explores unique aspects of the history, • Where Kauri did not grow, European settlers New Zealand, as well as in , and used rimu as the main building timber. properties and stories of its particular material. . He works from his studio in Kaniere, east • The bark was a common source of tannin in of Hokitika. Precious Cargo demonstrates how the acquired and tanning leather • Used most recently for furniture, woodturning The rimu cabinet draws its inspiration from: inherited material knowledge and expertise of lead- and carving. • The action of slicing clay. ing makers, gathered from their disparate making • The inner bark of the rimu tree was beaten into • The relationship between the fire implanted in traditions, transcends those differences. And how pulp and used as a poultice on burnt skin. the rimu as in the above story, and the firing of • The pulped bark was combined with water and clay. that expertise can be harmonised in the creation of hot stones in a calabash and dabbed on ulcers • A stylized representation of the unique bark new works that share the inheritance of multiple or running sores. patterns. • The gum of the young tree was used to staunch • The form is inspired by the seed capsule. Tim Wigmore acknowledges the assistance of Creative New­ Zealand with Precious Cargo making traditions. bleeding wounds. • The form also references the whare (house) for • The leaves were applied to skin sores. which rimu was one of the favoured and • The aromatic leaves of this conifer were used predominant construction materials for both for vapour baths. Māori and European builders. Objectspace 09 376 6216 8 Ponsonby Rd Mon to Sat 10 to 5 Auckland [email protected] New Zealand www.objectspace.org.nz Mataī Stories: together again, chip by chip. With powerful chants community at Taheke. Trained as a classical •  Puriri is an invaluable food source for native Mataī • The wishing tree of Mataī Tapu on Hongi’s they lifted the tree back onto its stump. Rata carver Lyonel is recognised as one of New Puriri wildlife, as it provides both fruit and nectar in Track: He who pays a fern-frond’s tribute at the leapt from the bushes angry that the hakaturi Zealand’s preeminent sculptors who’s work seasons when few other species produce these, Mataī Koauau by Brian Flintoff Puriri and Brass Chisel Mataī Cabinet by Tim Wigmore root and walks around the crusty bole, shall (forest spirits) were playing a trick on him. They spans between the traditions of traditional by Graeme Priddle thus it is often used in restoration planting 2012 have his secret wish fulfilled”. A Love of Trees — chastised him for cutting the tree without asking whakairo rakau (Māori wood carving), and the Puriri and Brass Cabinet • Māori preferred other timbers to puriri as its by Tim Wigmore Māori Name: Mataī Grammaticus 1982 Tane’s permission. Humbled, Rata performed the cutting edge of contemporary art production. cross-grain made for difficult carving, but karakia (prayers) and built a mighty waka from 2012 Common Name: Black Pine • The Goddess Hine Raukatauri is the casemoth The tōtara cabinet draws its inspiration from: puriri garden tools and weapons had a long life the tōtara tree. Māori Name: Puriri Botanical Name: Prumnopitys taxifolia who lives in her elongated cocoon that hangs • The action of using a wedge to split a tōtara and legend has it that buckshot used to Common Name: Puriri from many native trees. The male casemoth Proverb. He iti te matakahi pakaru rikiriki te log ready for carving. ricochet off puriri palisades. Endemic to New Zealand the mataī tree grows Botanical Name: lucens pupates and flies away, but the female remains tōtara. A wedge may be small, but it can reduce • It was used in the construction of hinaki (eel up to 40 m high, with a trunk up to 2 m diameter. • The form references a house pile (one of its in her case. At night as the breeze blows through the tōtara to splinters. Lowland puriri forests were once widely found traps) because it was one of the few timbers The leaves are small linear or sickle-shaped. popular uses as a durable timber). the cocoon, the call of the female moth to her throughout the upper half of New Zealand’s that would sink. The seeds are dispersed by the Kererū (New lover is heard as a sweet but barely audible Lyonel Grant ~ Carver • The surface represents the distinctive bark North Island however the tree was extensively • Puriri was sometimes used to dye flax fibres Zealand Pigeon), which eats the ‘berries’ and sound. This has been the inspiration for Māori Lyonel’s tribal affiliations include Ngati Rangitihi, pattern of the tōtara tree. logged. Puriri tends to be associated with fertile yellow. passes the seeds in its droppings. The mataī was flute music. Ngati Pikiao, Ngati Whakaue and Ngati Rangi- • The wedge cut from the cabinet refers to the or volcanic soils and early settlers often sought a revered tree by Māori who used the timber wewehi of Te Arawa. He was born in Rotorua story of Rata and the Tōtara with the small forest • Puriri sawdust can produce intense yellow Brian Flintoff ~ Flute Maker out and burned puriri rich areas to obtain good and gum extensively. Europeans appreciated and was brought up in a close-knit Māori creatures rebuilding the ‘trunk’ of the tree. stains on concrete floors and can be used as a Born in 1943 Brian Flintoff began bone carving farmland. By the 1940s the supply of puriri the mataī for its properties of hardness, wearing perfume. as a hobby in 1976. Working in isolation from timber was almost exhausted. When logged ability and dimensional stability. • The European settlers used great quantities of other carvers for several years he developed only the best trees were felled, leaving the puriri timber for fence posts, railway sleepers, Mataī Uses: techniques which have uniquely influenced his taking leaves from the plant. It is believed the gnarled twisted puriri often still found on farm shipbuilding and house blocks, as it is ground • Although quite slimy the fruit are sweet and work. Brian has now been focusing on the art of Harakeke three inner layers of the plant represented a paddocks. This has created an impression that durable without treatment for 50 years or were eaten by Māori. taonga puoro (Māori musical instruments) for family. The outer layer represents the grand- puriri is incapable of growing straight, but early more. more than 20 years and is widely regarded as one Shell Scraper / Kuku and Muka Sheath reports of puriri describe naturally clear trunks • Māori also traditionally used the gum as a by Veranoa Hetet parents, whereas the inner layer of new shoots • Puriri was also favoured for furniture and of Aotearoa’s pre-eminent makers and an expert of up to 20 meters tall. Puriri is an evergreen lashing sealant and binder for attaching spear Flax Cabinet by Tim Wigmore or the child remained to be protected by the decorative wood work. in Māori musical instruments. Both his carvings tree endemic to New Zealand. The Puriri tree points to handles. 2012 next inner layer of leaves, the parents. and his instruments can be found in collections • Māori used infusions from boiled leaves to Māori Name: Harakeke can grow up to 1.5 m in diameter, often thicker, • The thin wiry juvenile timber branches were and museums worldwide. Brian lives in Nelson • The Snaring of the Sun. Maui promised his treat sprains, backache and sore throats and as Common Name: Flax with a broad spreading crown. The thin bark is used for making hinaki (eel pots). where he works from the Tidal Access Studio. mother to slow the sun so that the days would a remedy for ulcers. Botanical Name: tenax usually smooth and light brown in colour but • When mataī was being felled for timber, be longer and they would have more time to can also be very flakey. Puriri is one of the few • The infusion was also used as a wash on the The Mataī Cabinet draws its inspiration from: bushmen drilled the base of standing trees to No fibre plant was more important to Māori find food. Carrying the enchanted jawbone of native trees with large colourful flowers which bodies of the dead to help preserve them. • The action of drawing breath. collect a sap known as mataī beer. than harakeke (flax). Each village typically had a his grandmother, Maui and his brothers range from fluorescent pink to dark red, rose • The form of: journeyed eastwards, to the pit from which the Puriri Stories • The peak period of mataī milling was in the pa harakeke (flax plantation). Different varieties pink (most common) or sometimes even to a sun rises each morning. They waited and as the • Puriri was sometimes so difficult to split that 1950s where it was used for bridges, construc- • The Pahu (an oval shaped slot Drum) tradition- were grown for their strength, softness, colour white flower with a yellow or pink blush. sun began to emerge from the pit, the brothers timber-workers often resorted to dynamite. tion, framing, weatherboards, and bed plates ally made from mataī. and muka (fibre content).The first European leapt out and snared the sun with huge harakeke Puriri Use • Puriri trees or groves were often tapu because for heavy machinery. • The Hinaki (eel pot) made with young mataī traders called it “flax” because its fibres were similar to that of the flax plant found in other ropes. As they held it still, Maui beat the sun • Strongest and hardest of the New Zealand of their use as burial sites, bodies often being • The hard, reddish-brown wood made excellent branches. parts of the world. It is unique to New Zealand with the enchanted jawbone, until it was so timbers Puriri is usually greenish dark-brown, placed in the crook of a branch. Because of this • Surface texture reminiscent of the bark of the flooring timber and window sills and was used feeble that it could but only crawl slowly across but sometimes nearly black or streaked with the puriri has a special significance and an mataī tree. and is one of our oldest plant species. Harakeke extensively for such. has a distinct appearance as its long pointed the sky — and continues so to do to this very day. yellow, it was often used for implements and association with death. For example puriri • A stylised cocoon form containing the subtle structures requiring strength and durability leaves are often worn on the head or carried in • Used for musical instruments due to its leaves fan out from the root up to a height of • Flax was so crucial for Māori that when acoustic properties. sound of the case moth as in the story of Hine about three metres in some species. The plants such as paddles, handles, bridges and fencing. the hand during a tangi (funeral). Raukatauri. nineteenth century missionary William have a mass of thick, fleshy roots sprouting from Colenso told chiefs that it did not grow in the rhizome which hold the plant firmly in the England, they replied ‘How is it possible to live soil. There are many different varieties of there without it?’ and ‘I would not dwell in Pohutukawa Uses harakeke. All have tall, tree-like flower stems such a land as that’. • It was traditionally used by Māori for paddles, called korari, which grow high above the leaves. Pohutukawa weapons, digging sticks and spade blades. • The inner bark was used for roofing and for From November to January, when they are in Veranoa Hetet ~ Weaver Pohutukawa and Chain Ring Sizer storage containers. bloom, they are a great attraction for birds Veranoa is of Ngati Tuwharetoa, Ngati Mania- by Nga Waiata • The nectar was collected for food and to treat Tōtara Pohutukawa and Rope Cabinet sore throats. Tōtara Mallet by Lyonel Grant • A pointed tōtara stick could be scraped on a slab especially tui, as they are full of nectar. poto and Te Atiawa descent and is the daughter by Tim Wigmore Tōtara with Pohutukawa Cabinet of softer wood such as mahoe to make fire. of master carver Rangi Hetet and master weaver 2012 • Early European bushmen made an infusion Harakeke Use by Tim Wigmore Erenora Puketapu-Hetet. As such she grew up (tea) from the inner layers of the bark to cure • The smoke from the wood was used as a cure • Pre-European Māori used harakeke as their Māori Name: Pohutukawa 2012 totally immersed in Māori Art and has been dysentery and diarrhoea. for a skin complaint, and boiled bark was used main fibre plant for making many things Common Name: NZ Christmas Tree Māori Name: Tōtara weaving for over 32 years and continuing the • It was used in bearings and machine beds due to reduce a fever. including: kete, nets, mats, cloaks, sandals, Botanical Name: Metrosideros excelsa Common Name: Tōtara Hetet family tradition of creating artworks of an to its hardness. • A valued food Māori collected the bright red and ropes. Botanical Name: Podocarpus tōtara incredibly high quality. She is married to carver This iconic New Zealand tree has become an • The kinked branches and roots were prized by fruit, which are sweet and juicy with a slightly • The leaf or root was pulped, heated and and teacher Sam Hauwaho of Tuhoe and Te important symbol for New Zealanders and it European settlers for stems and knees in Māori valued trees that had many uses and pine-y flavour. applied to boils, aching teeth, wounds, burns, Aitanga a Hauiti descent. They have five often features on greeting cards, artworks, boatbuilding. tōtara was a prized tree. Not only did it provide • Since European times, huge areas of tōtara eczema and scalds. poems and songs. Pohutukawa’s scientific children and live in the tribal settlement in Pohutukawa Stories easy to work durable timber, but its berries name, Metrosideros, is derived from the Greek have been felled to supply general building • The juice of the root was used to kill intestinal Waiwhetu, Lower Hutt, New Zealand. Her work • E hoa. Rukea atu to kura. Ka nui te kura kei uta attracted birds, an important source of food. words metro, meaning middle and sideros timber, railway sleepers, telephone poles, worms and as a purgative. can be found in private collections around the a ngangahu mai nei O friend throw away your A mature tōtara tree reaches up to 30 metres in meaning iron, referring to the hardness of its house piles and fencing due to its natural •  In the mid-nineteenth century, harakeke world as well as public galleries and buildings red feather head-dress! There are many red height. The leaves are small, narrow at both ends dark red heart wood. The pohutukawa is well durability and dimensional stability. began to be harvested by European settlers throughout New Zealand. plumes dancing on the shore. This proverb and are dull brownish-green. They are stiff and known for its spreading shape and distinctive which has a similar meaning to the English one Tōtara Stories and exported to Australian and English rope prickly to touch. Tōtara is also recognized by the The Harakeke Cabinet draws its inspiration from: red flowers in December and January. Slow “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch” Rata and the Tōtara. Needing to build a waka manufacturers. Harakeke became a major distinctive stringy bark, which flakes off in thick • The action of weaving to open and shut the growing, pohutukawa eventually reach 15-20 refers to an incident that occurred when the (canoe), Rata went into the forest and felled a export industry in the 1800’s and early 1900’s brown slabs. with hundreds of large flax mills operating cabinet. metres in height. Short trunks to 2 metres in Tainui canoe arrived from Hawaiiki at the east large tōtara tree. Exhausted he went home to diameter often have thick, twisted roots looking over ‘the boom years’. The advent of cheaper • The form of the sun being ensnared and coast of New Zealand. The tohunga on the Tōtara Use return the next day to carve the waka. When he more like branches helping it cling to coastal synthetics and the 1930’s depression saw the restrained by flax ropes. canoe wore a red topknot or decoration made • A waka taua (canoe), capable of carrying 100 came back to the site the next day he found the cliffs where it thrives withstanding wind, salt decline of the industry. from red feathers, a marker of status. The warriors, was often hollowed out from a single tree standing upright again. Rata was confused • The angular long sharp leaves of the flax plant. spray and drought. The leaves are greenish blue tohunga threw away his prized red feathers, tōtara log. so, after felling the tree again, he hid in the forest Harakeke Stories • The containment and protection the young on top and white underneath. White seed when he perceived a sea of red plumes which • Māori used the wood for large carving and and waited and watched. After dark, thousands • Traditionally only the older leaves on the leaf (in this case the artwork) within the older capsules follow the flowers and open around he discovered were just flowers, not feathers, framing for whare (houses). of birds and insects began putting the tree back outside of the harakeke plant were cut when outer leaves (the cabinet doors). May to release multitudes of thin, brown seeds. which quickly discoloured in the sun.