Reggie Meredith-Fitiao is an American Samoan artist and academic. [1] [2]
Meredith-Fitiao is considered an expert in barkcloth textile art, also known as siapo or tapa cloth. She is a professor of art at the American Samoa Community College. She has worked with international museum conservation staff to lead barkcloth workshops, including at the University of Glasgow and Oakland Museum of California. [3] [4] [5] She also works in conservation herself, and was the leader of a restoration project at the Jean P. Haydon Museum in Pago Pago. [6]
Pago Pago is the territorial capital of American Samoa. It is in Maoputasi County on Tutuila, which is American Samoa's main island.
Jay DeFeo was a visual artist who first became celebrated in the 1950s as part of the spirited community of Beat artists, musicians, and poets in San Francisco. Best known for her monumental work The Rose, DeFeo produced courageously experimental works throughout her career, exhibiting what art critic Kenneth Baker called “fearlessness.”
A lavalava, also known as an 'ie, short for 'ie lavalava, is an article of daily clothing traditionally worn by Polynesians and other Oceanic peoples. It consists of a single rectangular cloth worn similarly to a wraparound skirt or kilt. The term lavalava is both singular and plural in the Samoan language.
The traditional culture of Samoa is a communal way of life based on Fa'a Samoa, the unique socio-political culture. In Samoan culture, most activities are done together. The traditional living quarters, or fale (houses), contain no walls and up to 20 people may sleep on the ground in the same fale. During the day, the fale is used for chatting and relaxing. One's family is viewed as an integral part of a person's life. The aiga or extended family lives and works together. Elders in the family are greatly respected and hold the highest status, and this may be seen at a traditional Sunday umu.
Tapa cloth is a barkcloth made in the islands of the Pacific Ocean, primarily in Tonga, Samoa and Fiji, but as far afield as Niue, Cook Islands, Futuna, Solomon Islands, Java, New Zealand, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Hawaii. In French Polynesia it has nearly disappeared, except for some villages in the Marquesas.
The paper mulberry is a species of flowering plant in the family Moraceae. It is native to Asia, where its range includes Taiwan, China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, Myanmar, and India. It is widely cultivated elsewhere and it grows as an introduced species in parts of Europe, the United States, and Africa. Other common names include tapa cloth tree.
Barkcloth or bark cloth is a versatile material that was once common in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. Barkcloth comes primarily from trees of the family Moraceae, including Broussonetia papyrifera, Artocarpus altilis, Artocarpus tamaran, and Ficus natalensis. It is made by beating sodden strips of the fibrous inner bark of these trees into sheets, which are then finished into a variety of items. Many texts that mention "paper" clothing are actually referring to barkcloth.
Leone is the second-largest city on Tutuila Island's west coast. The village is on the south-west coast of Tutuila Island, American Samoa. Leone was the ancient capital of Tutuila Island. Leone was also where the Samoan Islands’ first missionary, John Williams, visited on October 18, 1832. A monument in honor of Williams has been erected in front of Zion Church. Its large church was the first to be built in American Samoa. It has three towers, a carved ceiling and stained glass. Until steamships were invented, Leone was the preferred anchorage of sailing ships which did not risk entering Pago Pago Harbor. Much early contact between Samoans and Europeans took place in Leone.
Sonya Rapoport was an American conceptual, feminist, and New media artist. She began her career as a painter, and later became best known for computer-mediated interactive installations and participatory web-based artworks.
Fatu Akelei Feu'u is a noted Samoan painter from the village of Poutasi in the district of Falealili in Samoa. He has established a reputation as the elder statesman of Pacific art in New Zealand.
Marion Gray was an American artist, photographer, and teacher. A vital member of the Bay Area art scene since the 1970s, Gray's "work blurs the lines between documentation and art, and exposes shared approaches between artists working in dance, performance and visual arts." During her long career, Gray documented the performances and works of artists such as John Cage, Christo and Jeanne Claude, Merce Cunningham, Joan Jonas, Marina Abramovic, Meredith Monk, Paul Dresher, Guerrilla Girls, and many others. As curator Christina Linden explains: "her photographs, themselves powerful works of art, constitute an immensely valuable archive of the ephemeral artistic activity the Bay Area has historically fostered.”
The Jean P. Haydon Museum is a museum in Pago Pago dedicated to the culture and history of the United States territory of American Samoa. It contains a collection of canoes, coconut-shell combs, pigs’ tusk armlets and native pharmacopoeia. It also houses exhibits on natural history, tapa making, traditional tattooing, as well as a collection of war clubs, kava bowls, and historic photographs. Constructed in 1913 as U.S. Naval Station Tutuila Commissary, the building was home to Tutuila Island's Post Office from 1950 to 1971. The museum has displays of various aspects of the Samoan Islands’ culture and history. It is the official repository for collections of artifacts for American Samoa. Funded by the American Samoa Council on Arts, Culture and the Humanities, it is the venue used for numerous of the cultural resource activities in American Samoa.
Lia Cook is an American fiber artist noted for her work combining weaving with photography, painting, and digital technology. She lives and works in Berkeley, California and is known for her weavings which expanded the traditional boundaries of textile arts. She has been a professor at California College of the Arts since 1976.
Dan Taulapapa McMullin is an American Samoan artist, known for his poetry, visual art and film. His major themes are his indigenous Samoan heritage and his fa'afafine gender identity. McMullin has been creating literary and artistic works for over 35 years, and has received numerous awards, fellowships, and grants. He works in a variety of literary styles and visual art modes. In his adult life, he has spent time in Los Angeles, and now live with his partner in Laguna, California, and Hudson, New York.
Richmond Art Center is a nonprofit arts organization based in Richmond, California, founded in 1936.
Dalani Tanahy is an American artist specializing in the Hawaiian art of creating kapa, fabric made by beating bark. Tanahy creates kapa for artistic and ceremonial purposes and teaches courses and workshops. She is the founder of Kapa Hawaii, an organization dedicated to reviving and preserving the art of kapa creation.
Mary Jewett Pritchard was an American Samoan textile artist. Pritchard is widely credited with reviving the art of siapo, the Samoan version of tapa, handmade cloth created by pounding the bark of plants.
Falemata'aga - The Museum of Samoa is the national museum of Samoa. It is housed in a former school which was built by the German colonial administration.
Cora-Allan Lafaiki Twiss (born 1985/1986 is a multidisciplinary Aotearoa -based artist and full time self taught hiapo practitioner, Twiss was awarded the Arts Pasifika Award 'Pacific Heritage Artist award' in 2020 through Creative New Zealand.