EMILY CHALK/Woman
Artist Cora-Allan Wickliffe may be the only living practitioner of hiapo using materials and methods similar to those employed on the Pacific island until the early 1900s.
This story was published on Woman.
Artist Cora-Allan Wickliffe is reviving the ancient Niuean art of hiapo. She talks to Dionne Christian about why family and community are at the heart of all she does. Making hiapo - traditional Niuean bark cloth painting – takes time and energy. First, you strip bark from an ata tree, pulling it off in large pieces and taking care not to make holes in it. Then you might soak it for up to a week or spend hours beating it with an ike, a wooden hand tool which softens and expands the bark.