Fern Lady
Everything that grows
The keeper of green things
Imagine a woman who carries the whole coast inside her.
Waves curl around her and break into foam at her feet. Ferns grow from her shoulders and rest along her arm. Spirals bloom across her skin like new fronds opening. A flower sits tucked behind her ear. Above her, the sun turns in a slow spiral, a bird crosses the sky, and far behind, mountains stand with their heads in the clouds.
She isn’t separate from any of it. She is where the sea meets the land, where the fern meets the light, where everything that grows begins. She looks out across the water with her eyes half closed, calm and patient, as if she has all the time in the world. Perhaps she does.
A world always becoming
Te Ara notes that many Māori creation traditions use images of childbirth, the growth of trees, thought, energy and the fertile earth to express the idea of constant, repeated creation: a world in a state of perpetual becoming. Te Ara also describes the koru, based on the unfurling fern frond, as a form often used in Māori art as a symbol of creation.
We love how that idea of perpetual becoming fits this piece. Nothing in it is finished. The waves are mid-break, the ferns mid-unfurl, the spirals still turning. Our artwork doesn’t depict a specific tradition or figure. It is our own response to that sense of a living, growing world.
The artwork
The woman is shown in profile, facing left, her long hair falling down her back, a flower tucked behind her ear. Her body is filled with spirals and patterned forms, and a large fern frond sweeps across her lower half, rendered in fine detail. Smaller ferns rise from her shoulder.
Around her, the landscape is alive with movement. A great wave curls up from the left, its crest breaking into fingers of foam. Smaller waves swirl at the bottom of the coaster. In the sky, a spiral sun turns above distant mountains, and a single bird flies across it.
The decorative spirals and patterns are our visual language of growth; we do not assign them customary meaning. On slate, the silvery tones and the dense detail give the whole composition a shimmering, oceanic feel, with the natural edge framing it like a rock pool.
Tribute
A tribute made with respect Our work is a contemporary artistic response to Māori storytelling and its deep connections with land, sea and ancestry. The visual interpretation offered here is Aroha Artisan’s. The traditions themselves belong to the communities who hold and pass them on, and the published accounts below offer a starting point for further learning.
Published accounts:
Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal, “Māori creation traditions”, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. https://teara.govt.nz/en/maori-creation-traditions “The koru”, Te Ara. https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/2422/the-koru