Kapa Artisan Roen Hufford will host a group of four for a hands-On Kapa Making Class at her Honopua Farm in Pu'ukapu Farmlots - Waimea.  Learn about and harvest wauke, the native plant used to make kapa, how to remove the bark, strip and process it, then beat it using tools that Roen and her late mother, kapa master Marie McDonald, made. 

The workshop will be scheduled at a mutually agreeable time with Roen.  Covid safety requirements apply including vaccinations or negative Covid test within 72 hours and masking. 

If more than four haumana permitted, the winning bid price will be adjusted on a pro-rated basis.  

About the artist Roen Hufford: 

Born on Molokai in 1950 and raised on Oahu, Roen Hufford has been a student of her mother, Marie McDonald all her life. She was introduced to a variety of art forms on Honolulu’s playgrounds as she shadowed her mother from a very young age. She graduated from Castle High School in Kaneohe in 1968, attended Pratt Institute from 1968 to 1970 and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ceramics from the University of HawaiÊ»i at Manoa in 1973.

Employed by the City & County of Honolulu as a Recreation Director, Roen later became a Recreation Specialist in Hawaiiana from 1973 to 1981. An accomplished lei maker and floral designer, Roen enjoys creating with plants. She has worked on large exhibitions like Flora Pacifica in the 1980s and owned and operated Alii Florist in Kailua before moving to Kauai where she worked at various florists and the Westin Kauaʻi. With her husband, Ken, she has farmed organic vegetables in Waimea for over thirty years. Special to her are two stands of wauke (paper mulberry) the raw material for kapa making, which she tends, inherited from her mother.

Roen began beating kapa in earnest in 2000 under the tutelage and insistence of her mother, Marie McDonald. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions and organized and conducted classes, workshops and demonstrations. Notable is her work with HOEA (Hawaiian ‘Ohana for Education in the Arts) a three-year art school funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and her participation in a Kapa Hula Collaboration which culminated in a performance by Halau o Kekuhi dancing in kapa at the Merrie Monarch Festival in 2011, at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center in 2014, and later at Kahilu Theater in Waimea.

Roen is a prominent part of a documentary, Ka Hana Kapa, which records the process and preparation for that event and the practice of beating kapa.

Her work can be found in private and public collections such as the Hawaiʻi State Art Museum, and is featured at the Gallery of Great Things and Isaacs Art Center both in Waimea.