Puanani Van Dorpe

Greta Mae "Puanani" Kanemura Van Dorpe (née Greta Mae Kanemura; 1933–2014) was an American artist and master of kapa, the traditional Hawaiian art of making cloth from bark fibers. Van Dorpe spent more than forty years researching the forgotten craft of making kapa, investigating the tools and materials used by ancient Hawaiians and experimenting to replicate the cloth. She has been credited as one of the women responsible for reviving the art of kapa in the 1970s.

Early life

Greta Mae Kanemura was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1933. Her ethnic background was one-eighth native Hawaiian. In the early 1970s, her husband Robert was recruited to work at a cultural center in Fiji. She worked with a forensic scientist to analyze materials used to dye cloth as well as to fix dye into cloth. After protests, the bodies were reinterred, with Van Dorpe leading fourteen women for four months to make over 1,000 pieces of kapa to wrap each set of bones for a respectful reburial. Her work is exhibited at the King Kamehameha Golf Course Clubhouse in Waikapu, where eleven panels of kapa honor historic Maui chiefs.

Van Dorpe lectured at Harvard University and within the Kamehameha Schools system.

A larger than life-size statue located within the Hilton Hawaiian Village hotel was created in 2006 featuring Van Dorpe as the centerpiece. The sculpture depicts Van Dorpe making kapa, being watched over by the patron goddesses of kapa makers, Lauhuki and La'ahana.

alt=Three bronze sculptures of women standing and sitting on rocks in a water fountain. The three figures hold cloth and beating sticks. "The Tapa Makers" sculpture by KaMille, located in the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Honolulu. Van Dorpe is the seated figure on the right.