A legacy of talent
THE potters and the artist encompasses three generations that come from a long line of poets, dance choreographers, story tellers, pottery artists and composers.
Call it a gift, blessing or a talent, no one can dispute the fact that these folks have had these special abilities passed down from one generation to the next.
Nestled on the banks of the great Rewa River is the small village of Nasilai.
A typical fishing village, like many around the country, a more comprehensive assessment begs otherwise.
The village is well known for its arts, particularly the prowess of its women in the art of pottery-making.
The women of Nasilai, specifically from the yavusa Vulagi, have been endowed with the ancient knowledge of Fijian pottery, passed down from one generation to another.
They manufactured and traded their glazed clay pots to other parts of Fiji long before the arrival of the first Europeans.
The Potters
Among the women potters of the Vulagi tribe, one potter who stood out was the late Taraivini Wati.
Her ceramic clay pots were widely sought after, as much as her storytelling abilities, often displayed while making her works of art. She was superbly brilliant with her hands and fingers, and a sharp witty mind to match.
The late Wati is famously known for recreating the saqamoli, which comprises three connected, spherical chambers and three hollow arms that combine to make one handle. Such vessels were made for chiefs to use. There are two apertures or short spouts, one of which was to serve as the pouring spout (i gaga).
The saqamoli is now memorialised on one side of the Fijian one-dollar coin.
Wati designed the saqamoli based on her knowledge and skills of the Vulagi tribe’s unique pottery pieces.
As was the practice from ages past, a newborn is given the same clay ritual of passing the tribe’s pottery skills and knowledge from one generation to the next, and Wati was no exception.
“She did become a potter, the most famous potter in Fiji,” said her grandson Rusiate Lali.
Wati was a member of the Vulagi tribe, a seafaring tribe whose ancestors traversed the seas from Kiuva, Bau, Tailevu, to their current location on the banks of the Rewa River.
The men of the tribe ruled the oceans with outstanding navigational skills while their women were reputable potters.
While the women of her tribe adopted and engaged in modern clay artifacts and decorative pieces, Wati chose to remain a traditionalist and maintain her cultural designs to elaborately designed water vessels and cooking pots.
Wati’s younger sister, Maraia Paulina, who is now Nasilai’s oldest potter, says that without her late sister’s inspiration, she wouldn’t have remained in the art. She aims to pass on to the younger generation the knowledge and skills she has acquired over the years so that they’re not lost in time.
Maraia has travelled far and wide, nationally, and internationally showcasing her works of art.
She says that in the village, the young seem disinterested in learning the art, but they do watch and play with the clay. She hopes that all the watching can be translated into practice when the need arose.
Wati’s son, Apenisa Bainivalu and his wife have carried on the tradition, creating designs for many international art galleries and museums. The couple sold 10 pots to a gallery in Queensland, Australia which fetched $1000 apiece.
“My wife and I both learned from mom, and we are now earning a small income to support our family from pottery,” said Bainivalu.
He explained that in days gone past, the elders would wait for the tide to go down before they would make their way to the river’s edge to dig for clay. The best clay for pottery would be found at the bottom of the riverbanks.
One day he decided to look for clay on land instead of going to the riverbanks, so he and his sons dug a hole behind their home. The hole had reached his chest before he found what he was looking for. He now extracts clay near his home instead of waiting at the riverbank for the tide to fall.
“Our ancestors were originally from Nasilai Village on the coast of Tailevu South. They moved to our current site after the daughter of our then chief got married to the son of a chief in the Rewa Delta. It was said that the Fijian princess missed her favorite seafood in her new home and the chief asked her father for some of her kinsfolks to move to Rewa so they could cater for her wishes. And so a few men and women made the journey to resettle in Rewa and start afresh, bringing with them the name of the village they had left behind.”
Apenisa and his wife have been entering and winning art and craft competitions since 2012 when it was first introduced by the Fiji Arts Council and have most of their pottery displayed in private homes and hotels around the country.
The artist
Rusiate Lali is the grandson of renowned potter Taraivini Wati.
Churning out stunning Melanesian aesthetics energised with powerful modernised expression paintings, Rush, as he’s commonly known, is a man ahead of his time.
His paintings are the most exciting and provocative contemporary artworks on the local scene.
His uncle, Mr Bainivalu, shared how Rush had joined a painting competition where hundreds of artists around the country would go through elimination rounds to determine the winner.
“After eliminations, only 5 artists remained and Rush was one of them. His painting, was of a traditional village setting, of an elderly iTaukei woman, with only a grass skirt around her waist and nothing else, sitting on the ground and weaving a mat, a baby crawling beside her and a warrior standing behind them with a war club in his hands,” Mr Bainivalu said.
“When Rush was asked to explain his painting, he told the panel of judges that he could dramatize it for them.”
A pioneer of the USP’s Oceania Cultural Centre, Rush’s passion for drawing also became his source of inspiration. From the Oceania Centre’s Red Wave group of artists, he was soon selling his paintings to private collectors and businesses, both local and internationally.
Rush’s first exhibited his artworks overseas in Alice Springs, Australia, at the Gallery Gondwana. He then became the artist in residence when Gallery Gondwana opened in Denarau, Nadi, until its closure because of the COVID pandemic. He now works out of his home and studio in Mokani, Bau, Tailevu.
“I have painted on traditional tapa and modern canvas as both medium can convey a particular message I wish to express,” he said.
Rusiate’s paintings now adorn the walls of homes and galleries around the world like Switzerland, Germany, France, Great Britain, the United States, Australia, New Zealand to name a few.