09 September 2022

A Hokianga home bursting at the seams with aroha, art, taonga and whānau connections

writer: ANNA BRANKIN (KĀI TAHU, KĀTI MĀMOE)

photographer: MICHELLE MARSHALL

Over the past twenty years, writer Claire Kaahu White, 57, and her husband Paul have created a home in Hokianga that celebrates their shared values and the many people and places that have influenced their lives, as well as providing a gallery of sorts for the couple’s significant art collection.

Perched on a ridgeline above Rawene on the south side of the Hokianga Harbour, the White family home offers wide views of the idyllic surrounding area. “We were really lucky to get the section that we’re on. It has 360-degree views so we can choose what to look at,” Claire says. “For that reason we made the decision to design the house with a lot of windows.”

Paul, an architect, designed the whare, with plenty of input from Claire. “We were on a pretty tight budget, so we used materials like plywood and corrugated Colorsteel,” says Claire. Fortunately, both she and Paul like the rustic appeal, or as Claire puts it, the “shed vibe”, and two decades on they are still very happy in their whare, which has plenty of room for visiting whānau and a dedicated office for Claire to write from.

The house has also proven to be the perfect place to display the beautiful and very personal collection of artworks that Claire and Paul have amassed over the years. “It’s a very personal collection, very much about Paul and myself and the people that we’ve met along the way, and the past too, because I have things that are very special to me, that belonged to different members of my family,” Claire says.

Claire inherited her passion for art from her mother and has many happy memories of weekends spent browsing the local art galleries in Ōtautahi Christchurch. "My mum was widowed when I was eight and my sister was six, and we never had a lot of money," she recalls. "But on a rainy weekend we'd go and look at the artworks - we couldn't afford to buy anything but it was a really nice time for her and I, and that's where my interest began."

Claire started collecting art when she was a child - copies and prints at garage sales and markets - and remembers that the first print she ever bought, from a secondhand shop in Akaroa, was Albrecht Durer's Great Piece of Turf. She studied art and art history at high school and university. When Claire arrived in Hokianga she began to explore collecting art in earnest. Having spent the early years of their marriage overseas and in Ōtautahi, Paul and Claire made the decision to shift their whānau north in 2003.

"It was a decision we made so that Paul could be closer to his whānau, to give him the ability to be quite active within his hapū, Ngāi Tūpoto," says Claire, who is herself Kāi Tahu. "His mother was born just across the harbour from where we live and he was raised in a place called Taheke, which is just along the road."

Being so far away from her whānau in Te Waipounamu, the South Island, Claire made sure that their new home had plenty of reminders to help her and their three young children, Tāwini, Te Hau and Kaahu, maintain a connection. This included a large-scale oil painting by Claire's friend, artist Jenny Rendall.

"When I left Te Waipounamu she painted this marvellous, beautiful painting of the facade of my marae at Arowhenua, and around it different things from the area: stories from the constellations, and tī kouka," Claire says. "So that's a really special piece because it brings home up here to me, and part of our whare was designed just for it. It sits beside the window that looks across to Paul's marae, so it's like I'm looking back, but I'm also looking forward."

When the whānau first settled in Rawene, Paul immediately began working for his hapū, and their children were enrolled at the local primary school. "I couldn't commit to full-time work at that point, and I just went into the art gallery in Kohukohu one day and asked if they were looking for volunteers, and they were," says Claire. "It was only open from ten until two, so one day a week, I dropped the kids at school, took the car ferry across from Rawene, worked in the gallery for the day and was back in time to pick the kids up."

This was Claire's first foray into the thriving local art community, and led to her enrolment in an arts course five years later. During this course she explored her passion for photography and after graduating, became a tutor herself. These experiences helped Claire to feel more at home in the local art scene, and the wider community, and although she returned to full-time writing six years ago she still maintains strong connections with the art world - reflected in the number of local artworks adorning the walls of her whare. In fact, much of the work on display was done by students on the course.

Claire and Paul's collection also features a significant amount of toi Māori that they have been gifted over the years, including woven kete, tukutuku panels, and beautifully carved taonga. Black and white photographs of their tīpuna are proudly displayed, connecting the whānau to their past. "It's important to me that they're hung in certain ways, so that our ancestors can be seen by future generations," Claire says.

There are also a number of etchings, including one that has special meaning for Claire and Paul. It belonged to Claire's mother and was created by Harry Dansey, who worked at the Hawera Star with Claire's adoptive grandfather. "It's a beautiful etching from the fifties that very symbolically comments on issues around housing," Claire says. "There's a Māori whānau sitting in the foreground and behind them there's a house that's falling down. Paul and I met while we were both working for the Housing Corporation and we are both still passionate about addressing Māori housing, and that's what Paul's mahi today is about."

Claire has always loved ceramics, and has a number of much-loved pieces by Māori ceramicists including Manos Nathan, Colleen Urlich and Frederika Ernsten. She has also been proudly collecting Temuka Pottery for many years, in honour of her grandfather who worked at the McSkimming Pottery works in Benhar in the thirties and forties. "My pōua used to fire the kiln, and although I'm not sure he ever worked at Temuka I've always had a love for Temuka Pottery from that era," Claire says. "We'd pick things up in little antique shops on our travels. I always say that it's like the Crown Lynn of the south."

The art is definitely a talking point for guests who visit Claire and Paul's home. "I like to see the art through the eyes of our manuhiri; it's quite lovely to look at it with that fresh appreciation," says Claire. "And people see different things. Some people will look at the etchings and ask what they're about, who did them. Others will focus on the taonga, the toi Māori."

As well as the careful curation of their art collection, Claire and Paul have invested a significant amount of time into developing their property, reflecting their passion for conservation. They take advantage of the climate with a thriving māra kai that supplies most of their fruit and vegetables, and have converted a significant chunk of the section into regenerating native bush.

"I love being amongst that and seeing the possibilities, that you can actually make a difference, even if it's small, but you can make a difference in your own backyard," says Claire. "It's been amazing to see the progress over twenty years, and we've now got two kūkupa that come and go, and so many tīrairaka and tauhou."

Although Claire and Paul are very settled in their beautiful whare, they travel a lot to Ōtepoti Dunedin, Te Whanganui ā Tara Wellington and Ōtautahi Christchurch to visit their children as well as their beautiful mokopuna, Aewa, Amo and Matawera. "We'd love to see even more of them but really with internet and telephone, and the ability to just hop on a plane, we're still very close."

The art collection has been complete for a number of years now, and Claire and Paul have deliberately refrained from adding any more items. "For us it was about knowing when to stop, and I'm quite aware that I don't need anything else," Claire laughs. "It was never about having a lot of material possessions, it was about collecting the things that have a story, that interest us. And we've got that now."

Glossary. Aroha, love. Taonga, treasure. Whare, house. Whānau, family. Hapū, subtribe. Tī kouka, cabbage tree (Cordyline australis). Marae, meeting house and surrounding complex. Toi Māori, Māori art. Kete, basket or kit. Tukutuku (panels), ornamental lattice-work panels. Tīpuna, ancestors. Mahi, work. Pōua, grandfather. Manuhiri, visitor or guest. Māra kai, vegetable garden. Kūkupa, native pigeon. Tīrairaka, fantail. Tauhou, silvereye. Mokopuna, grandchildren.