Above is my Tapa design. It's looks very simple, but definitely represents quite a few things important to me. In the middle is a cross, symbolizing my pacific culture, Tonga. But the stripes going across it come from the American flag, which is also part of who I am. The 7 stars count the people in my family -The two biggest stars being my parents, and the 5 small stars as me and my siblings. The stars repeat and creates a pattern through out my Tapa like the bear icon, which is very common in most designs. I'm a Virgo (Zodiac), and the bear is my animal sign. The basic layout of my Tapa (the two boarders and the 9 squares covering the face) come from many other designs as well.
In this activity we looked at a Samoan artist who lives in New Zealand, named Fatu Feu'u. He is a great artist, known for creating paintings, sculptures, pottery, prints, and glass work. His work is influenced by traditional Tapa cloth patterns, tattoo's, weavings, carvings, and mask designs. But a lot of pacific cultures have their own version of "Tapa", and we looked more into this by visiting a few sites. The task was to create our very own Tapa design, whether it be on paper or online! You can read more about what I created above. I really enjoyed this activity because I get to use and show off my digital art skills again, but I also really like how mine turned out.
