Entries by HMN

Topophilia – The Exhibition

About 500 leaves were stitched by members of my community in June and have been represented as an art installation at Mahara Gallery in Waikanae, New Zealand. Topophilia is a collective artwork, which conveys community bonding through creative activity.            

Topophilia – Love of Land

One month of stitching leaves within my community was a great experience: people met people, strangers became friends, old taught young, young inspired old, stories were told, serious themes and not so serious themes were discussed, gifts have been exchanged, tears run, some sad ones and some happy ones, and I have learnt, there is so […]

A week of leaf stitching

Wow, what a week. Three days at Otaki library and Paekakariki library, stitching leaves. Listen to people’s stories, talking, laughing and enjoying company. The library staff was just very supportive and even did stitch some leaves as well. Here some snippets. Next weeks activities will be in the Waikanae library: Tuesday, 21/6  10am – 2pm […]

The Leaf Stitch Project Kick Off

Today is the official start of Matariki, the leaf stitch activities have kicked off yesterday with a visit at the local market at the Te Horo Hall. Beautiful weather, no wind, so we could do the stitching outside! From today on I will also post a stitched leaf from a participant each day, till the opening of the exhibition next […]

The Leaf Stitch Project

Kia ora, I would like to introduce the Leaf Stitch Project today. The project is part of this years Matariki celebration on the Kāpiti coast. Matariki is the Māori name for a cluster of stars, also known as the Pleiades, arising on the southern hemisphere horizon every year. In Māori culture it indicates the beginning of […]

Sculptural felt in Wanganui

I just came back from 5 day felting workshop in Wanganui, organized by Fibre Arts New Zealand. The incredibly talented Pam de Groot thought us to create thee dimensional felt objects with a range of different techniques. It was an awesome week of learning sharing and exchanging ideas with other participants. Splash Spiral Twisted Felt Necklace and when I […]

Harakeke weaving workshop 30 April 2016 9.30am-4.30pm

I am offering an introduction to the Māori art of flax weaving in an intensive one day workshop in my studio. This is a workshop suitable for beginners. What do you get an introduction about types of harakeke and their uses an overview about the tikanga (protocol) of the process of harvesting and using harakeke learn some basic […]

Kite making workshop with Yvonne de Mille

This week I took part in a two days kite making workshop with Otaki based kite maker Yvonne de Mill at Whitireia. I am not really a kite fan so I was not quite sure about what to expect and if I would like the result. The first day Yvonne introduced some basic (but important) […]

Beautiful beaches north of Auckland

During a short visit to Auckland I had the opportunity to visit a few of those lovely eastern beaches north of Auckland. First stop at Hatfield beach, a wide sandy beach with amazing rock formations and little caves shaped by wind, weather and tides. Although only to be admired close up at low tide. Lucky me. The second […]

Bringing it together – solar dyeing

All those sampling is really exciting with often unexpected results. In my studio boxes with little pieces of silks and wool start to pile up so I decided to go one step further and respond in my personal way creating whatever comes out of the flow. Limitation was, only to use the samples of my solar […]