The Power In Words
I am not a writer. Yet, more and more, I am recognising how our words shape our experience and the world around us. And here I am again, putting words out, trying to art-iculate something deep and wide and immense: this human experience. My name is kanani cowell and I hail from O’ahu, Hawai’i, having come to Aotearoa 40 years ago via Tahiti and Samoa.
Always a Maker, I sold my first piece to a stranger when I was fourteen. Eventually, I took up art and art history, teaching here in Aotearoa (Thames High, etc.); I completed a Masters in Art in 2001. My early works were mainly large – sculptural mixed media felted pieces, where I occasionally incorporated words.
I credit Colin McCohn’s painterly biblical text with inspiring the use of words as a compositional framework for paint. My Master’s work took wordplay to another area: working in situ in the old mining quarry up the Waiotahi Valley in Thames.
I was doing work that acknowledged the scars of industry on the Earth’s skin. One ephemeral piece involved the documentation of writing the word MINE with water in a dried-up watercourse. It’s a simple word with dual meaning on the Coromandel, a gold mine and a claim of ownership. I won’t explain my thesis here but it did propel my current painting.
By now, you can tell that a major theme in my work is our human-centric relationship with our environment and other life forms here. During the quietness of the Covid pandemic, I wondered “What does nature want to say to us? To me?” and this began a series I call ‘Gaia Speaks’ in which I imagine plants, native birds, te whenua/ the land speaking to me. I find the words and images simultaneously strengthening the message – a bop on the nose of my consciousness to remind me to be nature centric, in which all things matter. In this way, I have sometimes found potency in writing words of te reo Māori with English to lift the meaning of the work, to honour tikanga Māori, the importance and beauty of this language to Aotearoa and the world. After all, what language would the kererū or rata speak?
If the words we think and speak send an energy into the world, then the question is: Do we send them with Fear or with Love?
You can contact kanani at [email protected] and if you would like to see more of her work, visit the Vessel Co-op in Thames – 752 Pollen Street
Words by kanani cowell
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