Do you need a CREATIVITY MENTOR to kick your arse, guide, inspire, motivate, teach, encourage, help and develop you to achieve YOUR CREATIVE GOALS AND DREAMS? I am NOW taking on new CREATIVITY TAUIRA and AUAHATANGA coaching clients, long distance online and via phone (aka right in your pocket).
This is for people who want a creative wake up call, help staying on track to achieve your creative aspirations, an experienced mentor and fire lit under you on the regular. This is for creativity across the board and is not specific to any one medium. No, I will not be teaching taa moko in this offering.
But I will teach you how to THINK, ACT, BEHAVE, DECIDE, COMPLETE, PROGRESS, BUILD and LAUNCH your own ideas in the best ways to suit YOUR unique recipe and makeup.
Tell your kin who may benefit from this opportunity to work with me one on one, personalized to YOUR situation and creative dreams. This is open to anyone who HAS A STRONG DESIRE TO WORK CREATIVELY, ACTIVELY and INTENTIONALLY WITH ME.
This is for you if you want and need TO PROGRESS AND EVOLVE YOUR OWN INDIVIDUAL CREATIVE and ALTERNATIVE PATHWAY.
This is for you if you are out of other options and YOU NEED TO MAKE IT AS A CREATIVE or if you are SOMEONE THAT DOES NOT FIT IN WELL OR SUCCEED ANYWHERE ELSE and instead of continuing to suffer trying to squash yourself into other peoples boxes…YOU DECIDE TO BET ON YOURSELF and TAKE A CHANCE ON YOU and what actually lights you up.
This is for you if no one else will invest in you so YOU MUST INVEST IN YOURSELF NOW. TODAY. Before this wayward society takes you out!
This is suitable for anyone that is at an earlier stage of their AUAHATANGA than me, or if you have seen me doing things that you also want to do (apart from tattooing).
We can start on YOUR NEW CREATIVE PATHWAY AND FIRST NEXT STEPS today! You can cancel at any time, no worries. You will need access to your own phone and wifi to participate in my AUAHATANGA programs and personalized coaching.
You will also need to actually DO the tasks and exercises that I give to you and CUSTOM CREATE FOR YOU.
Unconventional multi-passionate and neuro-spicy oddballs are going to love my style of unorthodox coaching. Creative people who have LOST THEIR SPARK and want TO COME BACK TO THE PATH will also benefit from this.
People with GOOD IDEAS that need a little help and boost to EXECUTE and KEEP EXECUTING will also get value from my unique style of mentoring.
You can participate weekly for as short or long as you like…until you no longer need or want what I have to give you. Everything is easier with a bit of support and my 20+ years of creative practice spanning multiple disciplines and countries is RARE, PRICELESS, UNIQUE and IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND ANYWHERE ELSE.
I will only be offering this for as long as I feel like it, or for as long as it is needed to serve the vast sections of my communities that would otherwise have FUCK ALL SUPPORTS IN BRINGING THEIR OWN UNIQUE AND UNUSUAL VISIONS INTO REALITY.
So if you know in your bones, and you can just FEEL IT…that you need to try this with me for at least a month to unstuck yourself and MOVE INTO DEEP CREATIVE FLOW AND PRODUCTIVE ARTISTIC EVOLUTION…SIGN UP TODAY and GET TO FUCKING CRACKING MY DARLING!
THIS IS GOING TO BE FUN!
You are going to love it…AND THE NEW WORK THAT COMES OUT OF YOU.
Let’s get you on your way this week!
$22AUD a week, get in the waananga and let’s do this together.
You can cancel at any time and try it for as long or short as you like.
Māori Art Education
'THE CLOAK OF UENUKU: THE POWER OF COLOUR ACROSS WORLDS' new EBOOK now available
THE CLOAK OF UENUKU: The Power of Colour Across Worlds, By Te Uira
E te atua, ko Uenuku
This book is dedicated to you, Uenuku.
Atua of the rainbow. Keeper of colour. Walker between worlds.
You who show us that after rain comes light.
You who hold all colours without choosing.
You who bridge Ranginui and Papatūānuku.
E Uenuku, guide my hands. Guide this mahi.
Why I Wrote This Book
For the love and joy of colour. I’ve been asked this for years: “Why colour? Why do you paint in rainbows?” The answer is simple: Because colour has been one of the gifts that has saved me.
I wrote THE CLOAK OF UENUKU for 3 people:
The artist – who wants to use colour with respect + meaning.
The healer – who knows colour is medicine, but wants tools.
The curious – who saw a rainbow after rain and felt something shift.
This is not an academic text. It’s a practice book. Part kōrero, part science, part ritual.
Use it however you need. Colour in the pages. Try the 5-day practice. Read one page after rain.
E Uenuku, may this book be useful, and may it draw your people into my world.
— Te Uira, Melbourne, 2026
THE CLOAK OF UENUKU
Part 1: The Light
What Is Chromotherapy?
Ancient Pigments of the World
The Science: Light is Colour
Uenuku: Atua of the Rainbow
More Pūrakau of Uenuku
Part 2: The Colours
Māori Pigments: Ngā tae
Māori Colour Language
Techniques: Tā Moko + Painting
Colour Meaning in Healing
Neuroscience: What Happens in Your Brain
Global Spiritual Colour
Part 3: The Practice
Modern Chromotherapy: 7 Ways Today
Making Pigment Today
Colour in Your Studio
Colour for Your Mood: 5-Day Practice
Colour First Aid Kit
Respect in Use
Working with Colour
My Practice as Te Uira
Colour Rituals
Part 4: The Journey
Colour + Emotion Journal
Colour + The Body
Colour + Nature in Aotearoa
Uenuku in the Whenua: Places
62 pages, illustrated A4 collectable printable ebook available now. Digital pdf download.
$44AUD per copy.
Featuring pastel rainbow colored pages, clean design, compiled with half text and half images. Space for you to write your own ideas, notes and drawings.
PUBLISHED BY:
About my new ebook 'TOI TŪHĀHĀ: A Māori creative cultural therapy manual' coming soon
Toi Tūhāhā is a Māori creative cultural therapy framework that weaves together cultural knowledge, creative practice, somatic healing, ritual and therapeutic insight to support individuals and communities in reconnecting with identity, regulating emotion, integrating trauma, and restoring balance.
The name Toi Tūhāhā reflects a return to the creative origins of self — a standing place of identity, culture, and wairua. It honors the understanding that healing is relational, embodied, spiritual, and deeply connected to whakapapa, spirituality, self expression and whenua.
This framework is built on the belief that creativity is a powerful medicine. Through colour, movement, pattern, story, breath, artistic practice, creativity, personal narrative, storytelling, ritual, journalling, music, self expression, and cultural practice, people can access pathways of healing that are intuitive, accessible, and culturally grounded.
Toi Tūhāhā is designed for clinicians, facilitators, educators, artists, youth workers, community practitioners, and individuals seeking tools that honor spirituality, culture, and wellbeing.
It is not a clinical replacement — it is a cultural companion. A kete of practices that strengthen identity, reconnect people to their ancestors, integrate the power of ritual, facilitate productive creative self expression, and support emotional, spiritual, and somatic healing.
Chapters
Introduction to Toi Tūhāhā
Ngā Rangi Tūhāhā — The 12 Realms
The Toi Tūhāhā Framework
The Science of Creative Cultural Therapy
Core Principles of Toi Tūhāhā
Acrylic Painting & Colour Healing
Toi Māori Modalities
Individual Practices & Exercises
Group Waananga & Collective Practice
Clinical Applications — Anxiety, Depression, PTSD & Addiction
Identity, Whakapapa & Cultural Reconnection
Somatic Healing & Body-Based Practice
Advanced Facilitation & Cultural Safety
Realm Integration & Holistic Practice
MY NEW COMPREHENSIVE ‘TOI TŪHĀHĀ MĀORI CREATIVE CULTURAL THERAPY MANUAL’ IS COMING SOON!
PUBLISHED BY:
New video shot in London, UK
I was grateful to be asked to do this interview when I was in London in August 2019.
Upcoming community workshops at Toi Wāhine 2015 HQ, 10 Hartham Place, Porirua
The exhibition Toi Wāhine 2015 that I am a part of alongside Xoe Hall, Sian Montgomery-Neutze, Miriama Grace-Smith, Pikihuia Haenga-Carkeek, Keri-mei Zagrobelna and Rangimarie Sophie Jolley, is on now until 22nd December 2015. So far it has been an amazing journey and I have been relishing every minute of the synergy and collaborative energy that comes from working in a group of like minded people.
We have several community events and workshops coming up soon. Here are two of them - mural painting workshop on Saturday 12th December and customised footwear workshop on Sunday 20th December.
I hope you can make it along to have some fun and share some time with our group of artists!
Mauriora,
Taryn
One of my first experiences of teaching.
Work with me: Matariki Māori star art workshop for educators and tamariki
An example of the activity I teach in the workshop.
I recently had the opportunity to teach some teachers a Māori art activity that I created for Matariki, based on contemporary whetū/star designs. I have always had a personal interest in stars and the activity grew organically from my own art practice where I started creating round kōwhaiwhai style star designs that I wanted to tattoo on people. Fortunately for me, an organization called Ruapehu Rural Education Programme, offered me the chance to deliver this art drawing activity as a workshop for its educators to come and learn, and to then takeaway and share with the children that they work with. It was super exciting to have the chance to work in the sphere of education, and I would love to do more work like this.
My desire to teach, share and be involved with children and young people has been increasing more and more over the years, and I have a true and passionate interest in education through the arts. I really believe that the arts are a powerful vehicle for instilling confidence in children, helping them to grow their own voices, assisting them to become powerful communicators, and aiding them in finding, exploring and expressing their own unique identities. I believe that the arts have a myriad of benefits for children and all of humanity, and I am currently investing more time, effort and research into learning more about education through the arts. Here's another article I wrote about my recent experience with Māori Art based education.
One of the workshop participants children came in after school and had a go at the activity.
An early childhood teacher from Ireland practicing the activity so she can share it with the tamariki that she works with.
Doing the activity myself while the workshop participants worked on their own star designs.
One of the workshop participants sussing out the technique so she can share it with the tamariki that she works with.
If you are interested in me coming to share this fun and educational, hands on and practical Māori star art workshop (perfect for Matariki) with your organization or group of people, please fill out the enquiry form below.
Guiding tamariki at my marae to paint their own mural.
Tattooer turned teacher? Why I love working with kids!
The designs used in the mural all had direct relevance to the children, who they are, who they have descended from and the overall message and kaupapa of the work.
I've recently been having more and more opportunities to work with tamariki and rangatahi, involving them in my work and sharing my passion for Māori Art and Tā Moko with them. Working in the educational sphere has already taught me so much and added so much value to my art practice and my life - teaching and sharing what I love is hugely rewarding!
There are several reasons why I love working with young people and why I think it is important.
Personally I feel that all creative activities have a multitude of benefits for human beings, and in particular children - the seeds of our future. Having an outlet and means of expression is healthy, healing and therapeutic. The arts have the ability to bring out the best in people, to bring us together, to connect and unite. The arts are a vehicle for teaching team work and creative collaboration with one another. Through the arts we can learn the power of focus, and the value of determination, commitment, persistence, practice, patience, and observation.
Cultural arts can connect children with who they are, their unique identities, who they have come from, their ancestry and the rich and vast culture and visual language that has been laid out before them by our ancestors. Cultural arts can be a vehicle for teaching both the importance of maintaining tradition, and also the value of innovation and evolution.
Cultural arts can also serve as a connecting point across cultures, bringing people of all different world views together - it can be a vehicle for cultural exchange and fostering respect between different people from all around the world. To me, empathising, understanding, seeing value in, and having an appreciation and interest in other cultures outside of ones own, is good for our kids.
Many Māori children are naturally artistically talented and inclined and I believe in encouraging, fostering and cultivating this to its fullest potential.
I believe that Māori Art is a viable career pathway for some of our rangatahi and I want to help them achieve their dreams and goals and show that it is possible to be a successful Māori Artist, to not only survive from art but to thrive as well. I feel that the arts are an even playing field (provided you work hard and put in the hours) - for the kids that may not be good at sports, or maths, or English, or whatever the case may be, the arts can provide an opportunity for them to excel at something and to experience a feeling of success, accomplishment and achievement within themselves. There are many success stories of Māori Artists excelling in their chosen fields both within Aotearoa and internationally - and for the children that have their heart in their art, I want to help them excel and succeed.
A big thank you to my whanaunga Ash who co-facilitated this educational workshop, without Ash's contribution this workshop wouldn't have been possible.
If you would like me to come and work with your school, museum, gallery, organization or marae, just email me on taryn.teuira@gmail.com with details of what you would like to achieve, your budget, and some information about the group that you'd like me to work with. I'm currently working on developing a series of workshops - stay posted.