TE AO ATUA.
Tā Haka · Tā Moko · Tā Whakairo · Tā Kōwhaiwhai · Tā Rākau · Māmā — art in motion, one off, and this whole world is yours, e Wae.
You are art in motion. Thirty-one years in Ōtaki, carving in what they called a man's domain — pfft, and what. Your brothers, the harsh taskmasters, voted you best performer of your generation. You carved twenty full-headed taiaha in one month. The moko rides your chest and throat, the kauwae your chin; the puhoro is next. And this — this whole world — is built around that fact of you.
Your hands make the art once. The digital carries it forever — no stock, no post, no cost per copy. Every pattern, moko design, kōwhaiwhai panel and carving template you make is digitised once, then it lives as everything: tattoo sticker sheets · print-at-home art · design packs · jewellery files · laser-cut and 3D-print files that outsourced makers fulfil while you never touch a courier. One design becomes twelve formats; te kurawaka does the multiplying.
And the three of yours are the natural thread: your designs become colour-in pages, dot-to-dot atua, trace-the-godline, pattern hunts — digital books parents print at home. Rātehaeata reviews. Lunar field-tests. Mahea approves the fun. The family that makes together sells what it loves.
1 · This week: your collection + the design bank start the shelf — the till is already alive.
2 · The rhythm: one new design a week becomes twelve formats.
3 · The kids star in and test the tamariki books.
4 · The empire: the bank compounds; the bills pay themselves; the art stays art.
WAEREA — the fashion line — rides the same designs onto cloth, print-on-demand, nothing in your hallway. The name is the brand because the name is you.
The lightbox. Choose a plate of true tāmoko or kōwhaiwhai — it lies under your pen at the opacity you set. Trace the lines faithfully; the hand learns the line. Nib size, ink colour, pen style, the light grid when you want it true. This is practice the old way, on glass.
Write easy, like a socials post — and the far end of the rope is a finished digital product. The guide rides beside you: she's read the whole canon, Tuhirangi and all, and she coaches while you write.
Two whole whare of their own, built for your hands. Touch a card to walk in.
TE UTE · the navigation
The map of the whole waka — every place one button-push away, what this kurawaka IS in plain words, and three journeys walked end to end. Start here any time.
open the navigation →
Tuhikura · the mannequin moko studio
The human form actual in the round — full orbit, tip it overhead or underfoot, zoom to a knuckle. Isolate what you're working on: head bust alone for mataora and kauae, one arm alone for a sleeve, hips and thighs alone for the pūhoro, back and buttocks, legs. Skin and eye colour changeable; hands with fingers. A template pool rides with you — ten kauae, mataora, pūhoro sweeps, sleeve wraps, and mixed designs you can land anywhere on the body. Save, come back, flatten to print, project true-scale onto wood or skin.
open Tuhikura →
Te Rārangi · the pattern studio
Formal pattern making — kōwhaiwhai, tukutuku, tāniko, whiriwhiri, raranga. His ten pattern families ride as a plate library you can trace, adapt and recolour. Seamless tiling preview, grid + snap, living lines that never pixelate, and one-touch 4K print files — nothing to something on your shop shelf.
open Te Rārangi →
Te Waiata · the music room
The music of the house — two thousand songs, atua-driven. The radio with pictures: load tracks from your device today, playlists seat as they land. And the first hundred songs with their words, each topknotted, each read five ways, each connected home to a room of your whare.
enter the music room →
Te Pakihi · the business
The turnkey system, dedicated and by the numbers — what sells, how the studios themselves are licensed, the hub where the community's work flows through your tuku circulation, the moon-set competitions, the lockdown, the 8- and 16-year plans. You do the art; the system does the rest.
see the machinery →
Rangiwhatu · the console + the orb
The newest room. Say what you want made in plain words — the console answers in canonical spec and queues it in the waka. And the orb seed: put any image inside a living form, turn it, tip it, light it, hold absolute control of every aspect. The seed of the 25-year machine, alive today at seed scale.
enter the sky-eye →
Tuhikura : Tangaroa · WaterSign
The sacred Tangaroa wānanga from his house hui te ana nui — the page devoted to the natural art of water flow. The shells and the stones first — whole worlds sculpted to perfection every time — then the creatures: water first, then land, then air. Every image carries its kōrero: hawaiki science married to east and west, the maths till they stick, the atua six lines underneath everything, and what each one means in the heritage art — direct to you.
enter the watersign →
Te Whare Whakairo · the carving studio
Spec the block in plain words — "two metre high tōtara, one metre thick, knots and all" — and carve it with chisel and mallet: true bevel-light grooves, tap chips, burnish. Tōtara, kauri, mataī, whalebone, albatross bone, pounamu, obsidian — grain authentic to the species, knots and blemishes natural or clean. Sixteen carved pou in the library to trace and adapt. Turn the block, zoom to the cut, export 4K, project true-scale onto the real timber.
open the whare whakairo →
Te Whare Kapahaka · four rooms in one
Compose waiata with scales western, eastern, middle-eastern and hawaiki; record with your own phone or laptop; six stem seats wired and waiting for your dad's stems; the song builder asks the whakapapa of every song — every song has a different one. Choreograph FORTY and see it flow: floor geometries under their feet, poi patterns circling midair, weaponry line-circle-spiral. Dress the rōpū in the costume studio. Build your teaching programme — NCEA/NZQA credits, atua-centred, not baby stuff. Plus the Ōtaki resources map.
open the whare →
Yes — you can input your own, to yourself. Photos, videos, designs — drop them here and they live on YOUR device, yours alone, waiting for you every time you come home.
One horse, many saddles. ahorangi.io is the horse — the till, the vault, the gates, the roads. You are a saddle: your own entrance, your own world, nothing to install, nothing to sign up for, no ordeal. Your space lives at its own link under the horse's roof — bookmark it and it's one touch home, always. And when the day comes you want waerea@ahorangi.io as a real email — that's one switch your dad flicks at the domain (Cloudflare email routing), no new account, no cost, and it lands wherever she wants it. The horse carries it; the saddle stays hers.
The eight of the Zero Line. No photographs here — the godlines only, the symbols, the words. Your heritage, one touch, immediate.
| The stream | Held at |
|---|---|
| Tā Whakairo — carving (waka huia · panels · taiaha · pounamu · bone) | $45–$1,200 |
| Tā Moko — the chair (kauae · sleeves · ceremonial marks) | $120–$2,800 |
| Tā Kōwhaiwhai — panels · rafters · body-paint ceremony | $800–$1,200 |
| Tā Haka — the performance | her call |
| Te Whakaako — teaching | $400–$5,000 |
The hands-on work grows to exactly what your documents already mapped. This table just holds the door open; the digital core carries the weight meanwhile.
Art in motion. One off. A natural — natural at everything. And the three who test everything you make:
Rātehaeata
The reviewer. Grew up beside her young aunty; best of enemies and sisters both.
Waimirirangi
The field-tester. Paddles 12km around Kāpiti every morning; the baby of the crew and cracking it.
Mahea
Approves the fun. Native-speaker guru at seven; knows where everything is in the aisles.
Te Kurawaka rides inside an AI, and you drive it. Easy once someone tells you the actual moves — touch any card, it opens the how: