Artist Dalani Tanahy Teaches Students Art of Making Kapa
December 17th, 2021
Guest Artist Dalani Tanahy gives students a quick demonstration on the art of kapa making
Dalani Tanahy is an artist and educator working primarily with the traditional art of kapa. As a 20-year practitioner of the art, La Pietra's Art Department was excited to welcome her to campus as part of the Guest Artist program to work with 6th graders on creating their own kapa, or bark cloth. The process included stripping wauke branches, carefully beating the bark, and then printing on their newly made cloth.
Tanahy is a native of San Diego California with roots in Maui and O’ahu. As a child, she enjoyed the slow tedious work involved in crocheting, knitting, embroidering and quilting. Tanahy made her first i`e kuku and hohoa beaters over sixteen years ago through the help of Kawai Aona-Ueoka. Her first experience teaching kapa started at the Cultural Learning Center at Ka’ala in Wai’anae.
"When I first saw picture of Pua Van Dorpe serenely and intently pounding a sheet of kapa, I had no idea I would be led on such a journey," Tanahy says. "As I watch other kapa makers, I can see that there is something deeper that gives artists and cultural practitioners the determination to sit for long stretches of time."
Tanahy found the perfect marriage of art and education by creating and sharing the art of kapa and was inspired to start Kapa Hawaii. Kapa Hawaii teaches people about the types of Polynesian bark cloth collectively known as "tapa" with a special emphasis on the tapa or "kapa" made in the Hawaiian Islands.
6th-grader Zoe M. shows off her finished kapa art
As a life-long artist, Tanahy is attracted to the many disciplines involved with kapa. This includes tool making, horticulture, graphic design, natural dye production, education, research, and the meditative rhythms of the beating itself. By crafting her own tools, she has been able to work with precious natural elements such as smooth warm woods, hand-picked basalt pōhaku (large, flat rocks), and opihi shells.
While starting the process of making their own kapa, students got to work with some special tools handmade by Tanahy. With opihi shells, they got to work stripping wauke branches. Next, they placed the stripped bark on a pōhaku and began the rhythmic process of using a hohoa beater to pound the material into a sheet of kapa, moving carefully and patiently so as to avoid making any holes.
Students get to work beating bark in order to get a wide sheet of kapa
Once their kapa was pounded nice and flat, students moved on to a printing station where they used bamboo stamps to add patterns to their pieces. Next, they added enhancements -- adding pops of color to their designs with paint made from the land's natural resources.
"I became a scientist in the kitchen laboratory boiling up the bark, petals, leaves, and roots that would become the brilliant blues, greens, yellows, and an unbelievable rainbow of colors that our kupuna loved to place on their kapa," Tanahy explains.
The hands-on history lesson served as a truly eventful morning for La Pietra's 6th graders, culminating in some beautiful handmade kapa art. A big mahalo to Dalani Tanahy for passing down the knowledge of this traditional art to our students! If you would like to learn more about kapa or Tanahy's work, visit kapahawaii.com.
La Pietra's Art Department has also welcomed a number of other exciting guest artists to its classrooms, including photographer Ric Noyle and multimedia artist Tina Cintron.
