Ali Brown and flax weaving

Traditional Māori introduction and its translation.

Tēnā koutou katoa

He kairaranga ahau, he kaiwhatu harakeke, he harakeke o Aotearoa, he kaituhi pukapuka ako mo te raranga harakeke.

I am a kairaranga, a weaver of harakeke, New Zealand flax, and author of a series of instructional books on flax weaving.

Taku whakapapa toi / Craft heritage

I come from a family of craftspeople: My father, James Mackenzie, was a qualified bespoke cabinet maker, my mother, Reta Mackenzie, sewed, knitted, embroidered and did basket weaving, and my maternal grandmother sewed, knitted and did embroiderery. No doubt there will be other craftspeople among my tūpuna / ancestors, details of which are lost in the mists of time.

Taku wheako toi / Craft experience

During childhood, I learned to sew, knit and practice other crafts. Over the years, I‘ve had hands-on involvement in many different crafts, particularly the fibre and weaving crafts such as bobbin lacemaking, willow and cane basket weaving, stone wrapping and netting. Other crafts I’ve experience in include sewing and embroidery, cross-stitch, smocking, knitting, silversmithing, bone carving, book binding, flax paper making, leatherwork and glass flamework and beading..

Raranga harakeke / Flax Weaving

I was drawn to the beauty of woven harakeke — the soft often muted colours of dried harakeke woven in a diagonal weave — and began weaving with it in the late 1990s. Weaving with harakeke is an integral part of the traditional culture of Māori, the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand, who have woven with harakeke for hundreds of years, using weaving techniques adapted to make use of its strong leaves and inner fibre. The skill and expertise of ngā tupuna kairaranga o Aotearoa — the Māori weaving ancestors of Aotearoa — who adapted their knowledge of palm weaving by exploring, trialling, experimenting with, and developing weaving techniques with harakeke leaves resulted in the beautiful art of raranga today. Māori culture is part of my country’s culture, and as a person interested and experienced in the creative arts, it was perhaps inevitable that I would eventually be drawn into the weaving traditions of te ao Māori. I approach flax weaving with respect to those weavers who have gone before and with respect to the tikanga of flax weaving.

Taku wheako raranga harakeke / Flax weaving experience

An early connection to Maori arts and crafts, including raranga, came through visits, in 1986, to Te Maori: Te Hokinga Mai The Return Home, where I became very aware of the cultural significance of the artworks to Māoridom.

When I became more involved in flax weaving in the late 1990s, I wasn’t aware of any wānanga / workshops that I could access, and used Mick Pendergrast’s book “Fun with Flax” as a learner’s book, and the educational booklets and videos written for the New Zealand Department of Education by tohunga raranga / master weaver Cath Brown QSM (Ngāi Tahu), a founding member of Te Roopu Raranga Whatu o Aotearoa / National Māori Weavers. I continued to practice and teach myself, using any book I could find. Some of those early books are listed here. I also wove with two of my work colleagues, Jan Hutchison (Ngai Tahu) and Ruby Nepe, when I wove my first kete, pictured here.

After meeting Māori tohunga raranga (master weaver) Morehu Flutey-Henare (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Māhanga, Ngāti Ruanui and Ngāpuhi) and weaving a putiputi / flower with a work group at Onuku marae in Akaroa, I attended two weekend workshops with her at Lyttelton in 2002, appreciating Morehu’s skills, creativity and open, friendly sharing of her knowledge.

In 2003 I completed Räranga Taonga Level 1 and Räranga Takitahi Level 2 (Māori harakeke weaving) at Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology (now Ara Institute of Canterbury) with kaiako Marama Piripi, weaving putiputi, kono, konae, kete, pīkau, waikawa and whariki.

 

Ko te mātauranga kāre i tuku, ehara i te mātauranga
Knowledge that isn’t shared isn’t knowledge

Curiosity, wondering how things work and how things are made, involving research, trialling and experimenting, working out for myself and understanding how things work and documenting this knowledge are part of the way I work. The second and more important part of this is sharing the knowledge. I do this through my books, projects on my website and wananga.

In 2005, I created a flax weaving website, including free-to-all instructions for beginners’ flax weaving projects, and a blog about various aspects of flax weaving.

In my six instructional books on flax weaving I share the knowledge I’ve gained and continue to gain. My first book, “Weaving Flowers from New Zealand Flax” was published in 2009. Since then I’ve written 5 more books on flax weaving, which have been recommended by individual tutors of raranga, students of Te Wananga o Aotearoa as well as many individual weavers from throughout Aotearoa and overseas. Feedback received about my books has been very appreciative. As I weave all the samples for my books, and take step-by-step photographs as I go, the bulk of my flax weaving over the last few years has been for the books.

In 2023, we celebrated reaching the total of 10,000 copies of the books sold by gifting three sets of books to three weaving groups around the country.

Over nearly 20 years, from 2005 until 2023, I held regular flax weaving workshops and one-off workshops for those wanting to learn basic weaving as well as art, craft and floral groups, kura, community groups and organisations, educational groups and summer schools, including some in Norfolk Island. At these workshops, I wrote and distributed written notes on some of the techniques used for participants for future reference. A number of the workshops raised funds for charity, including KidsCan. I continue to do voluntary tutoring occasionally in a informal way for community groups.

As a member of Te Roopu Raranga Whatu o Aotearoa since 2005, I attended and wrote about their national weaving hui at Kawerau here and here and Ōtautahi, and wrote a couple of articles for the organisation’s magazine.

Te raranga harakeke o naianei / Current weaving

Tu Pono Raranga in Motueka is the roopu / group I currently weave with, our main project being to weave a sail for a local waka business. In 2024, three of our group flew to Otautahi to examine the construction of Te Ra, the only known woven flax sail in existence, at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū — a valuable experience. In 2023, the group wove two whariki for Motueka Library — Te Noninga Kumu and we enjoy the company of other weavers working on their own projects, as well as those wanting to learn.

Harakeke itself provides inspiration — its beauty as a natural material and its many properties gives it a versatility that can be harnessed in many ways. I often play around with harakeke, letting it bend and move in its own way to see what shapes it takes, in a similar way to Ruth Asawa who says of Joseph Albers’ teaching: “What he was talking about was abstracting from the material. Rather than being concerned with your own design ideas and forcing something into it, what you do is, you become background, just like a parent allows the child to express himself and the parent becomes sort of supportive.”

Mai i te kōpae ki te urupā, tātou ako tonu ai
From the cradle to the grave we are always learning

Increasing my knowledge base and weaving skills in both contemporary and traditional areas is an essential part of weaving for me. An example of contemporary weaving I designed and wove recently is a chess set, some pieces of which are shown here. I designed each of the larger pieces in a modular form, fitting different pieces together to make different characters. In comparison to this, understanding and practising the hono / join for the waka sail, which was woven approximately 200 years ago, is an opportunity to increase traditional weaving skills.

Being involved with raranga and te ao Māori inspired me to start learning te reo Māori in 2019. A particular interest is in te reo kupu / Māori words to do with raranga, and using some te reo in my books. In later years, the instructions for several projects on my website have been translated into te reo Māori and my book “Creative Flax Weaving” includes a glossary of weaving terms in te reo Māori. (I have used some te reo when writing this web page. I’d be grateful to hear about any mistakes.)

Harakeke / New Zealand flax

With its strength, durability, suppleness and flexibility while green and hardness when dry, harakeke is an ideal material to create practical items and decorative pieces — it grows freely in Aotearoa and is available in a number of other countries. It’s not necessary to use identified weaving harakeke for all projects. Many harakeke are suitable for weaving — weaving samples from different bushes builds up knowledge of the properties of plants in the area. As a sustainable and biodegradable resource able to be used in place of non-renewable resources, harakeke is an ideal material to work with in a world with too much plastic.

© Ali Brown 2025