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If the well-being of a country is measured in the art it produces, then the Cook Islands would rate very well. For a small nation, the Cook Islands ranks high as a producer some of the most stunning quality contemporary and traditional visual arts in the Pacific.
A thriving arts community and the support of establishments like the Beachcomber Gallery in Avarua, sees numerous exhibitions held during the year featuring well-known local artists and visiting artists from overseas.
There are art galleries on Rarotonga, Aitutaki and Atiu that have paintings, carvings, modern and traditional textile art that would match anything found overseas.
The works are vibrant expressions of traditional and modern Polynesia - the Cook Islands as it was and is today. The works of several leading painters have been shown in solo and group exhibitions in New Zealand galleries, receiving rave reviews.
Master carver Mike Tavioni's magnificent works, are in galleries and homes all over the world. The fine, exquisite weaving of hats, baskets and natural jewelry by the women of Penrhyn are worn worldwide.
The Cook Islands tivaivai (quilts) are beautifully handmade bedspreads of tropical designs and colours. The tivaivai art form is unique to the Cook Islands and are works of love by the women who spend hours making the sought after bedcovers.
Rarotonga is rapidly becoming a visual arts focal point in the Pacific.
Tivaivai
Works of love To describe a tivaivai as a quilt or bedcover does not do it justice. A tivaivai is an exquisite work of art, combining meticulous stitching, patterns inspired by nature and wonderful, vibrant colours.
The tivaivai art form is unique to the Cook Islands; the women taking it to heights of excellence found nowhere else in the world. It was the wives of missionaries that taught Cook Islands women patchwork quilting, appliqu and embroidery.
Cook Islands women took those early concepts and over the years developed them into a remarkable art form that is continuously reaching new heights of excellence.
Their ability to quickly adapt and refine the techniques taught by the early missionary wives can be credited to Cook Islands women being adept weavers with innate creativity and sense of colour.
The original word for what has become a tradition amongst Cook Islands women was "tivaivai" meaning to stitch. The change to tivaevae occurred in Rarotonga and was possibly due to the incorrect pronunciation of tivaivai by non-Cook Islanders. There are various styles of tivaivai. The brightly coloured tivaivai tataura karakara is one of the most difficult of all tivaivai styles to design, cut and sew. This embroidered appliqu style is a technique developed by Cook Islands women and is unique to the country.
The complicated tivaivai manu design is drawn directly on cloth or traced from a template. It is then cut out and placed on it's backing of a contrasting colour and sewn on with fine, almost invisible stitching.
The tataura vavai, is a tivaivai style that has many elaborately embroidered panels joined together by beautifully crotched strips. A king size tivaivai taorei is normally made of around 56,000 tiny squares. Meticulously hand sewing thousands of these squares into complicated, vibrant patterns can take years to complete.
These works of love are usually given as gifts at special occasions or to cover the casket of loved one and then laid into the grave. Today the tivaivai are also used as wall hangings of different sizes.
A sewing group or pange is a wonderful example of creative cooperation - teams of friends who regularly get together to sew, chat and sing while making a tivaivai.
Normally the women of a pange will all contribute towards making a single tivaivai at a time until each member has one to take home with matching pillowcases. Then the process starts again with a different type of tivaivai.
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