By Dean Sensui, Star-Bulletin
No'eau Penner and her gourds.
Foster Botanical Gardens festival
By Catherine Kekoa Enomoto
will have many a treasure to discover,
like the craft of No'eau Penner who
transforms simple gourds
into works of art
Star-BulletinIPU carver No'eau Penner's eyes are sea blue with pupils rimmed in gold. The colors match the ocean below, and the sunrise off, her Lanikai home. But, her eyes reflect a vision beyond Lanikai. Penner transforms plant materials into artworks.
At this week's "Na Waiwai I Ka La'au O Hawai'i Nei" (The Richness of Plants in Hawaii) event at Foster Botanical Gardens, she will teach children to make mini-weavings and coconut-fiber hats while showcasing her own carved ipu, or gourds.
The five-day event features three days of free workshops and a two-day weekend festival -- all celebrating island plants. The festival name "waiwai" translates "richness"; Penner appears at an enriching event in a pu'uhonua (retreat) that nourishes the spirit.
"Foster Gardens is such an exquisite place," she said. "If you want to find a place in the middle of Honolulu that is a sacred retreat, just walk right into Foster Gardens.
By Dean Sensui, Star-Bulletin
No'eau Penner paints a gourd with a basket-weave pattern..
"Oh," she sighed, "the quiet, the sacredness that you feel there is just really incredible. There are a lot of people who have lived here all their lives, they haven't been there. Some people don't know about it, some people have forgotten about it. I think this is a really nice way of reminding people to use this beautiful place that's available. It's right there and those trees, oh ... "No'eau Penner, aka Nan Hackett Penner, is a 6-foot-tall West Coast native who's lived in Hawaii for 14 years. Her Hawaiian name means artist and she's one of 20 members of the Native Books & Beautiful Things hui.
Her artistic hats include ipu carver, weaver, papermaker, mask-maker, teacher and angel maker. She takes California and Big Island ipu -- forms voluptuous with potential -- then wood burns and paints them with designs of Hawaii plants, flowers, tapa and tattoos. They range in price from $25 to $600.
Penner, 65, sat in her Lanikai home, surrounded by her woven wall hangings, handmade baskets and lamps, and ipu in all stages of creation -- like canvasses in a painter's studio. She had an open, gentle, yet purposeful aura. She talked about how, despite being a seventh-generation Southern Californian, she ends up creating and teaching indigenous art forms wherever she goes.
"I've taught mask-making at the University of Alaska at Juneau, because their heritage is so rich in mask-making, and I taught paper-making with native plants. And at the Appalachia Craft Center in Tennessee, I taught basketry.
"It's something I draw to me in some way," Penner said of recreating indigenous art. "It's something that's God given. It's a gift to me. It is so special, I can hardly tell you how special it is. And, it brings such joy to me.
"I think it's because I love the sharing. I never got a credential, I never got a degree. I have taught at the Smithsonian Institution. I taught at the Seattle Weavers Guild for years. I taught in San Diego and New Mexico. "People ask me; that's how it evolves."
Evolve perhaps, but Penner's art also stems from letting her delight lead her, as in the children's activities. This weekend she'll show how to create lovely weavings and fanciful hats.
She will provide 6-by-10-inch cardboard pieces with string stretched over them like guitar frets. Then, children will lace coconut fiber and twigs, segments of dried lei and philodendron sheaths through the strings. They will learn to recycle the so-called weeds and discards of life into texturally inviting objets d'art.
"The way I was raised is you always leave everything better than the way you found it," Penner said. "That totally you take care of other people's things, more than you take of your own even (and) that you always share.
"As far as my art goes, I always want it to be a celebration of life. I feel life is so precious. We're here such a short time and we just need to find ways of expressing the celebration of it (life).
"I feel that there are lots of ways of celebrating destruction and chaos and fear and I don't think we need that. Ever since I was a child, I felt we needed to express our celebration and our love and the light."
Enrich is Penner's vision, as it is the theme of the Foster Gardens festival.
"I can only hope that each piece that I do -- that goes out, away -- carries that celebration, that love and that light in it," she said. "That's really my major goal."
The facts
"Na Waiwai I Ka La'au O Hawai'i Nei" celebrates the richness of Hawaii's plants with demonstrations on plants used in building, clothing, medicine, arts and crafts. Also, Halau Hula O Hokulani entertains. A sampling of Hawaii's staple foods is discussed and Haili's Hawaiian Foods sells lunch plates.
Place: Foster Botanical Gardens
TOMORROW -- Medicine
Alapa'i Kahuena discusses medicinal uses of Hawaii's plant life in la'au lapa'au, 10 a.m.
WEDNESDAY -- Food
THURSDAY -- Utility
