Our Roopu
James (Jim) Schuster
ONZM, PGDipMPD, BA
Catherine (Cathy) Schuster
James was born and raised in Rotorua NZ, into a family that has maintained and practiced Maori Arts and Crafts for generations. Traditional knowledge and skills have been passed down through the family, and led to his position as Maori Built Heritage Advisor, Traditional Arts, with Heritage NZ Pouhere Taonga, from which he recently retired after 20 years service.
James is the only son born to Bob and Emily Schuster. He has five siblings, all girls. At the age of 13 he left home to attend St Stephens School (Tipene) at Bombay near Auckland. His tertiary education was at Victoria University, and Wellington Teachers College.
30 years of teaching at all levels of the NZ education sector has also provided the necessary skills required for running wananga and workshops to pass on those traditional skills. Traditional harvesting and preparation of natural resource materials has become a key component of restoration workshops, held on Marae throughout the country, for the restoration of whakairo, tukutuku and kowhaiwhai. This work has also taken him overseas to work on wharenui outside of New Zealand, particularly Hinemihi who stands in Clandon Park, UK, and Rauru in the Museum fur Volkerkunde (now MARKK) in Hamburg, Germany.
‘Te Maru o Hinemihi’ began as a ‘Friends of Hinemihi’ group. Jim suggested the Maori translation as ‘The Sheltering Embrace of Hinemihi’, referring to the whare sheltering her people on the night of the eruption at Tarawera, including his own tupuna, and still embracing New Zealanders in the UK today.
Cathy lives at Lake Rotoiti, near Rotorua with her husband James. They have 3 grown up children and 9 mokopuna. She comes from an intergenerational teaching background, and completed her teacher training at Wellington Teachers College and Victoria University in 1974, meeting James at that time.She taught in predominantly Māori primary schools in the Bay of Plenty and Rotorua regions for nearly 30 years. She learned to weave from James’ mother Emily, and over the years has become proficient and fully immersed in many of the weaving arts, including piupiu, raranga, whatu muka, and tukutuku. As the passion grew she decided to leave teaching and became a full time weaver in 2005.
Cathy has worked closely with James, in an independent capacity, on many projects over the last 20 years, includingheritage restoration of wharenui artworks, and new marae projects, across the country, working with the people of the marae to enable them to work on their own taonga. Her teaching skills have been invaluable in this work. She also takes contracts with schools and performing arts groups to make piupiu and other costume pieces specialising in traditional material resources and techniques. She and James helped set up a weaving collective in Emily’s memory, TeRoopu Raranga ki Rotorua, where she has continued to develop her skills in all areas of weaving, and make lifelong connections and friendships with like-minded weavers.
In 1993 Cathy and James made their first visit to Hinemihi at her National Trust owned home at Clandon Park, with their children. This came about as Emily and a group from Rotorua, having visited Hinemihi in 1986, realised the wharenui needed more specialized care and attention, as well as contact with her whanau at home in Aotearoa/ NZ. From that point on we have made many visits to the UK to offer support, carry out hands-on restoration, and rekindle the relationships between Hinemihi and her people back home, as well as strengthening and expanding the relationships formed in the UK. In 2014 Te Maru o Hinemihi was formally constituted, taking the original ‘Friends’ group to a new level. Cathy and James continue to be involved as current negotiations for the return of Hinemihi to Aotearoa are progressed.
More of our team’s bios to come.