Hawai‘i Handweavers’ Hui:
Hard Work and Endless Play By Catherine Tarleton
KeOlaMagazine.com | May – June July – August 2020
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ords about weaving conjure up artistic images all of their own. We weave stories, spin a “yarn,” and embroider narrative with detail. In Hawai‘i, we weave a tapestry of cultures, from East and West, ancient and current. Weaving has always been both practical and decorative, form and function. And so it goes with today’s weavers—as members of the Hawai‘i Handweavers’ Hui, a statewide collaboration of weavers, spinners, knitters, and more—come together to celebrate, educate, innovate, and elevate these traditional crafts. They are artists, and more. “I’m an engineer,” says Joelle Dubois, who’s been spinning for two years and weaving for four. “I like the combination of mechanics and equipment, with being able to produce something for the home. You start from scrap and produce beautiful things for yourself and others.” Jill Cohen, a five-year hui member from Colorado says, “I’m a logical person, and weaving is very logical, very mathematical. The loom does the work.” Prior to moving to Mountain View on Hawai‘i Island, she worked for the Budget Office for the City and County of Denver. “Weaving keeps my interest. There are so many different possibilities, different patterns, different things you can do. It’s also very meditative, calming, kind of zen.” “It’s good for the brain, because weaving involves so much math,” says weaver, author, and retired food writer Joan Namkoong. “I’ve been a weaver while I was a foodie, about 35 years,” says Joan. “I moved to the Big Island 14 years ago, and then I had more time, and started doing more.” The Hawai‘i Handweavers’ Hui, Hawai‘i Island chapter hosted a recent exhibition, “Threads Allure,” at Pictures Plus in Kailua-Kona. It was designed to show an interactive relationship between woven fibers and the viewers themselves. “The intention is, whatever was in the show, you could go and feel and touch and experience,” says Joan. “With fiber, you want to go feel it. Definitely, the tactile experience appeals to me, especially silk. It’s soft and silky but very strong.” Hui member Joelle Dubois demonstrates
22 using a spinning wheel to make yarn
at the recent exhibition. photo by CTarleton
Twenty-one different works, from the islands of O‘ahu, Hawai‘i, and Kaua‘i, invited visitors to touch and enjoy scarves, towels, wall-hangings, samples, and more. The items are made from everything: handwoven cotton chenille, hand-extracted coconut fiber, and sanseveria. There’s threaded bamboo with onion skin and sandalwood, Kool-Aid-dyed silk and wool shawls, and something called pattern-undulating indigo. The show is true to the Handweavers’ Hui’s mission, to promote excellence in handweaving in all its diversity of materials and techniques. It’s easy to see these creators share a joy and passion for the fiber arts, at the heart of the Handweavers’ Hui. Founded on O‘ahu in 1953, the hui now has more than 100 members and a second chapter on Hawai‘i Island. In addition to practicing their own crafts, they are dedicated to promoting them by teaching in schools and community centers. Joan remembers learning to weave in classes at Bishop Museum. “I worked with some old-time weavers who started the hui, like Ruthadell Anderson,” she says. “She made the two big tapestries in the State Capitol Building, with a group of weavers.” The tapestries were hung in the House and Senate Chambers for the building’s opening day in 1969. Joan says, “Weaving is one of those things…It’s kind of a dying craft, and mostly done by older people,” she says. “We all take it for granted. It’s been done for millennia.” Weaving is historic and universal; it was done everywhere there were materials to be used. Indeed, the early Polynesians had been master weavers before they ever sailed to Hawai‘i. And, although the iconic Hawaiian kapa cloth was made by pounding plant fibers instead of weaving them, weavers were highly regarded, as were the plants that yielded weaving materials. So much so, that of the 24 carefully chosen “canoe plants” brought to the islands by early settlers, five of them related to weaving were allowed precious cargo space. According to the 19th-century historian David Malo, “This work [weaving] was a source of considerable profit; so that women who engaged in it were held to be well off, and were praised for their skill. Such arts as these were useful to the ancient Hawaiians and brought them wealth.” It must have been jaw-dropping for those lifelong weavers, when outsiders arrived on ships with giant cloth sails, their crews in