20 years of Hawaiian artistry, from Lahaina.

How it started

One year, Tammy's mom and aunt flew to California for Hula Mau, a hula festival held on the mainland. Her aunt came home with a small gourd - just a souvenir at the time - with a hula dancer wood-burned on it. Tammy looked at it and thought: I could do that.

Coming from a big family, she always made something by hand for everyone at Christmas. That year she put the Lāʻie Temple on a gourd for her LDS relatives. It was a hit. People wanted more. More ideas came.

That was 20 years ago. She has not stopped.

Why ipu

Ipu are Hawaiian gourds - traditionally an implement, used in hula and daily life long before they became decorative. Tammy grew up around them through hula, and that's where her reverence comes from. She is not a historian. She is an artist who works in a form her culture has been working in for centuries, putting modern stories on an old shape.

Family and Lahaina

The first piece Tammy made for her own family was for her granddaughter's first birthday. The next was a Kaniho family reunion ipu with all 16 of her grandmother's siblings' faces on it. Many of the pieces she is proudest of are for her own people.

She lives and works in Lahaina, Maui. After the fires, her work has carried more weight than ever - both for her, and for the diaspora who reach out wanting to commission a piece of home.