Noted on the Wayside: Life and Art in Fiji

POTTERY SHARD MYSTERY

2012-02-18T19:41:00.000-10:00

The beach near our home bears the marks of recent floods, with bigger than usual piles of broken branches and rubbish washed ashore. Amongst the mess, I have been finding yet more shards of earthenware pottery - water-worn shapes that range in color from rusty red to soot black, remnants of vessels made from a course clay that appears to have sea sand mixed into it.

Hundreds of shards like this have been appearing at Wailoaloa Beach along the edge of Nadi Bay for several years now - leaving me intrigued as to where they are from and what the story behind them is!

They do not have any obvious markings - though a few have imprints of cording or leaves, in keeping with construction methods used by Fiji's traditional potters. I love feeling the thumb and finger prints of long-forgotten artisans who have inadvertently left their personal marks on their handiwork - as someone with a passion for pottery, I sense a kind of tactile connection here with kindred spirits - and wonder if I will ever know more about who they were and how they lived...

Since the Nadi area does not boast any traditional pottery villages (though perhaps there were potters around here too, in the heyday of this local craft?) some are suggesting that the shards found along Nadi Bay are imports from the Sigatoka river valley, carted into our area in truckloads of white beach sand brought in from the Sigatoka Sand Dunes during the 1990s, to beautify the hotels built on the reclaimed mangrove swamps of Denarau Island... If anyone can shed some light on this little local mystery, please let me know!

"Kuro Ni Viti" from Nakabuta Pottery Village near Sigatoka. These earthenware cooking pots are made
by a modern day Fijian potter using traditional forming and firing methods.

EMPOWERING THE PACIFIC'S CREATIVE COMMUNITIES

2012-02-11T19:16:00.000-10:00

I have just come back from a four-day workshop for Cultural Producers in the South Pacific - a fascinating gathering of musicians, visual artists, craftspeople, fashion designers, and dancers from around our region. The focus of the presentations and lively discussions that filled the program was on how to empower practitioners in these fields, often working in relative isolation with little visibility and support, to grow their creative enterprises and overcome the fragmentation that exists.

Inspiring encounters with creative individuals who are often working against enormous odds to follow their dreams and make a living for themselves and their communities from their talents, were the highlight of my week in our capital city. These included a woodblock printer from the Solomon Islands who makes his own paper from banana tree trunks, using an old exercise bike, converted to double up as a blender, a painter from Vanuatu who creates original designs based on tribal motifs, using paper made from the bark of banyan trees as her canvas, digital artists from Papua New Guinea, a ukelele maker from the Cook Islands, and a mother of six from Samoa who has grown her own handicraft retail business from early, inventive beginnings creating wall-hangings from natural fibers.

I have returned to Nadi refreshed and challenged, excited about the potential our island-based creative enterprises and networks have, in terms of contributing to the cultural vibrancy and economic well-being of Pacific communities....

Participants in the Suva-based workshop Feb 7th to 10th, 2012

WADING WITH SHARKS

2012-02-05T01:01:00.001-10:00

I have lived in Fiji for over twenty years, doing my fair share of swimmingand snorkelling - always aware that an eventual encounter with a live shark, inthe wild, was probably inevitable... Not that I was looking forward tothe occasion!

My husband, Ron, who comes from a small seaside village on an island northof here called Taveuni, is a member of the Matapule tribe, a traditional clanthat has as its totem a sea turtle. Tribes in Fiji each have theirtraditional roles - warriors, boat-makers, hunters, builders, sailors, and soon. The Matapule are traditionally known as fishermen, and as such, havea close affinity to the sea. According to ancient legends, still verymuch alive in the minds of most Fijians, Ron's people were given specialprotection by Dakuwaqa, a sea-monster god who often took the form of ashark. This close affinity between man and beast means, even to this day,that members of the Matapule clan believe they will never be attacked by ashark. I am hoping that the descendents of Dakuwaqa will take into accountmy marriage certificate, and keep all encounters with me to a friendly naturetoo!!

I can now boast of having met my first wild sharks! And yes,I have lived to tell the tale! Actually, these were baby Blacktip sharks-not much more than a couple of feet long, as in the photo above. There were several of them,swimming very close to the shore of Bounty Island, a small coral atoll not far from where we live. My children and I spent a couple of days hererecently. Spotting the beige-colored sharks with their distinctive blackfin tips became a daily highlight of our trip. If we stood very quietlyin the knee-deep water, they would swim right up to us, darting away justbefore we could touch them! Apparently, baby Blacktips swim close inlandfor self protection until they are big enough to ward off cannibalistic attacksfrom adults of their own genus...

A campaign to create a national shark sanctuary in Fijianwaters is currently gaining momentum locally, in the face of wasteful andabusive culling of sharks, in order to supply the lucrative shark fin trade fueled by demand from Chinese merchants. For more information about saving these keyplayers in marine ecology, visit http://www.coral.org/sharks

A shark features in some sea-life murals I painted in acrylics on board

STRANDED BY FLOOD WATER

2012-01-26T20:37:00.001-10:00

This has been the week of THE FLOOD! It rained all Sunday night, and by morning the power was cut, and our road was submerged under a meter of water at the lowest places. The Nadi River, just a cane field or two away from our neighborhood, had broken its banks, and brown, swirling water was backing up through large areas of the river plain, causing havoc in countless homes and farmsteads, and surging through the shopping precinct of Nadi Town. Our home is on a small rise; thankfully the water did not get as far as our yard. But it rained almost non-stop for the next two days, turning several areas of Fiji's main island into national disaster zones. Many families around us have lost the contents of their home and the crops in their fields.

Here are a few photos taken in our neighbourhood during the three-day flood:

Rainy Season In Fiji

2012-01-21T19:27:00.000-10:00

It's high summer here in Fiji, which means RAIN - lots of it! Here in western Viti Levu, rainy season days usually start off with brilliant sunshine. As the sun climbs higher in the sky, temperatures and humidity levels rise. By mid afternoon, huge thunderclouds are towering overhead. The storms roll in fast, with cracking lightning and blinding sheets of rain that quickly flood our road with several inches of water. A couple of hours later, the skies clear up; the air temporarily cooled. Sunsets this time of year are especially colorful, often accompanied by a double rainbow arching over the mountains to our east.

Two storms converging over Nadi Bay

I took this photo while on a boat crossing from Bounty Island to Vuda Point, earlier this week.

Barkcloth Art for New Zealand Exhibition

2012-01-19T22:30:00.000-10:00

Three of my barkcloth paintings have been selected for the Natural Fibres Innovation Exhibition which will be held at Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand during the last week of this month. Here is a sneak preview of one of them, just completed last week:

"Red Palm Grove"
Acrylics on Traditional Fijan Barkcloth
Size: 60 x 60 cm (inclusive of barkcloth-covered mount)

Also selected was "The Sigidrigi Mat" which I painted late last year:

This piece, executed in acrylics and pigment pen on a piece of beautiful white masi, measures 66 x 66 cm (painted barkcloth mount included). Used for ceremonialpurposes as well as for eating, sleeping and sitting on, hand-woven pandanusmats that are central to life in every Fijian household. A gathering of friends and neighbours on amat of an evening may give rise to a spontaneous “sigidrigi” or informal folksinging session, accompanied by ukuleles and guitars. Between the songs, stories are told and ideasdiscussed. This painting celebrates the creative spirit of such occasions.

Fresh Fruit Day

2012-01-08T20:48:00.000-10:00

Three of the banana trees in our garden are bearing fruit at the moment. One of the bunches was ripe enough to pick today - if we'd left it out much longer, the bulbul birds would have hollowed out all the fruit! The green bananas that are not ripe enough to eat will remain on the thick stem. This will be wrapped in a sack and hung from the rafters of our porch, so the fruit can ripen in its own time, away from the bats and the bulbuls...

Yet more fresh fruit came our way today: our neighbour handed us bag of huge avocados he had just picked from the tree in his yard! One of my favourite tropical fruits - I love eating them with a little lemon juice, salt, and pepper - or tossing chunks of avocado into a garden salad!

Greeting Cards

2012-01-04T21:23:00.000-10:00

Getting our first order of the year out today - 50 greeting cards featuring small hand-painted designs on barkcloth. We use a thick metallic gold paint to draw in the details - once it hardens, the artwork has a nice texture to it. Today's designs include frangipanis, ocean waves, and palm leaves.

Fiji Time

2012-01-04T17:33:00.000-10:00

For some great observations about the phenomenon known as "FIJI TIME", and other interesting experiences a foreigner attempting to live and work in Fiji may have, enjoy this New York Times article by coral reef researcher Mark Hay, reprinted last week in our local newspaper....

Drinking Kava on Fiji Time

Artwork at Woodford Folk Festival in Australia

2011-12-28T01:10:00.000-10:00

As the old year turns into the new, I am venturing into something new too - have just completed two paintings which are now on display in the Pasifika Gallery at the Woodford Folk Festival near Brisbane, Australia. www.woodfordfolkfestival.com Thanks to the hard-working Pacific Arts Alliance team - can't wait to hear your stories and see images of artwork by artists from around the Pacific featured at this event...

Here are pix of the two pieces I entered: More details to be seen on my website: www.art-sigavou.com

This one's called "Spice of Life"
Dyes on Silk, by Maria Rova, December 2011

"Fair Weather Friends"
Dyes on Silk, Maria Rova, December 2011