I looked online and found Inia at Moko Inc. His studio is on his property outside of Auckland near Helensville and Muriwai Beach. He has a beautiful 20 acres of property about 50 minutes north west from Auckland.
Inia has worked in the film industry. He's been a part of major movies like The Piano and Once Were Warriors. If you ever get a chance to see Once Were Warriors, he's done all the facial tattooing in that movie.
Inia also does sculpture and word carving. He trained in tattooing with his mentor, Paulo and was the first to start taking traditional Maori designs from wood carvings and place them onto people as tattoos.
Here is a short video of a documentary about Inia.
On a side note, Inia's God-Daughter was helping to complete the tattoo. Eva is a Year 12 student who is learning the art of tattooing. Her father was the lead singer from a New Zealand music group called OMC. Back in the mid 1990's, OMC had a smash hit called How Bizzarre.
OMC stands for Otara Millionaire's Club. Otara is a disadvantaged suburb of Auckland where her father lived and grew up, hence the name is cynical in nature. Unfortunately, Eva's father passed away from MS in 2010 when she was only 9.
Anyway, during the tattoo session we listened to OMC, Bob Dylan and Bob Marley. As nerdy as I am, we got talking about Grit and they even turned on Angela Duckworth's TED Talk.
Back to the tattoo, Lynn drove me out to Moko Inc., Inia's studio where we co-planned the tattoo.
This is Inia as he starts to design the piece on my right calf. Prior to this, we sat down and spoke to him about my values and he taught us about traditional Maori designs that represent these values.
This is the piece coming to life. He continued to add to the design until it was perfect.
Next, we started adding the ink. I have a previous smaller tattoo on my left shoulder that I got when I was in university over 20 years ago. So I have some (limited) experiences with tattoos. This was a much larger peice, taking 4 hours to complete with some breaks along the way.
Part of the tattoo was completed with traditional Maori tattooing called Moko. A sharpened bone is used to insert the ink. It is tapped into your skin using sticks. Here's a video of that experience.
Lynn left for most of the session to travel back to Narrow Neck to pick up the kids from sailing camp. Then see returned with them and Grandma to pick me up. Inia was so kind to spend time with my family explaining the significance of the tattoo.
Then we were invited to feed their lambs and they gave us a dozen free-range eggs. BONUS - a tattoo with a dozen free eggs!
Designs within the tattoo are difficult to explain.
There are two korus which are the negative white space swirls. They represent an unfurling frond of the fern. These represent Jonah and Siena, growth, strength and peace.
The twinned swirls represent Lynn and I. It is called a mangopare and represents the hammerhead shark. It is a sign for tenacity of life and devoted lovers.
From the koru and mangopare, in the shaded regions, you can see the rippling effect that we have on each other. Like a stone thrown into water, one action causes a reaction. It reminds us of our affect on others.
The weave pattern is a sign of teamwork. As individauls we are all weak but as an entire team (extended family) we are strong. We are better together.
The shark teeth pattern is the most used design in Polynesian tattooing. It signifies protection and adaptability. Sharks will lose many teeth during their life and new teeth are always growing in to take their place.
The stick birds are gannets. They are a migatory bird used for navigation and fishing. Maori and Polynesian people used these birds to traverse the Pacific Ocean. There are four birds (Lynn, Jonah, Siena and I). They represent travel. The lines coming from the birds represent dreams and aspirations. This part of the tattoo was completed with the traditional bone technique.
So the tattoo is in it's healing stage for the next 10 days...I'll update a picture once it's completely healed.
On the way home we visited Muriwai Beach to checkout the Gannet colony and sites.
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