Laura Kerrison is a collector of creative projects. A User Experience (UX) designer by trade, what began as a 100-day social media challenge to learn Te Reo Māori and brush up on her watercolour skills quickly gained momentum, amassing over 20,000 followers and turning into a creative business that celebrates Te Reo Māori in Aotearoa. Alice Rich caught up with Laura to chat inspiration, creative process and how watercolours have helped to strengthen her cultural identity.  

Hi Laura! How did Kupu Rau come to be? In 2018 I started studying Te Reo Māori through Te Wānanga O Aotearoa, but when Covid hit I struggled to learn online so I had to stop. It had been years since I’d done creative things just to express creativity so I started a 100-day challenge learning a Te Reo Māori word every day and drawing a watercolour illustration to match. Kupu Rau means “one hundred words”.

Tell us about your creative process for the one hundred days. I tend to operate sitting on the ground so I sort of just took over the coffee table for most of the year. I’d have my little space and, at least for the first few weeks, I’d choose a word and sketch it out in the morning.  Sometimes a painting might only be 45 minutes of elapsed time but I’m actually working on it over a whole day. It was quite hard — a few of my first hundred I did with watercolour pencils because we were travelling and there were days where I just hated everything I painted and it would take whoever was around me to convince me it didn’t matter and that I just had to post it.

You have iwi affiliation to Ngāti Rangitihi and Ngāti Tūwharetoa. What does your iwi think of the success you’ve had with Kupu Rau? I don’t think they actually know about it. Growing up I wasn’t very connected to our marae or iwi which was part of the reason for learning te reo in the first place. I’ve been on my own haerenga (journey) of connecting to my whakapapa and, for me, this journey has been focussing on Te Reo Māori, learning more about my whakapapa and Te Ao Māori in general.  I’ve been a bit too shy to actually reach out to my iwi and share my work directly but it’s definitely the plan, eventually.   

Have you felt that connection has allowed your confidence to grow? Definitely. As my Reo Māori grows, I automatically feel more confident. I can now happily and comfortably do my pepeha and introduce myself to people, sharing my iwi, whereas I always felt like a bit of an imposter doing that before. I can also understand a lot more, although I’m still not conversational. As well, with Kupu Rau, helping other people to learn and connect to Reo Māori, which is such an important and beautiful language, is really nice. I’m not alone on this journey.  

What is it about watercolours as opposed to some other medium? Practicality-wise, they’re really forgiving and relatively quick to work with. I’ve always loved watercolour art; I think it’s so beautiful and expressive. You can be really creative with colour in watercolour and it doesn’t have to be so literal all the time. Most of my illustrations are literal because I’m doing a translation of the word into a picture but in between that, when I’m just painting for myself, it’s really fun to do experiments, it’s a super cathartic, non-stressful medium…most of the time!

Tell us about your inclusion of digital art. I’d resisted digital art for ages but I decided to get an iPad because I'd seen people using Procreate and it looked cool. I was instantly converted but it’s been quite interesting because a large part of the reason for doing Kupu Rau was the watercolour, creativity and the therapy of painting and using my hands again which was something I didn’t want to lose by doing digital art. What’s actually happened is although I do less watercolour painting, it’s more of a joy now than when it was something I had to do every day. 

What prompted you to start selling your prints? I never expected it to turn into a shop but when I’d finished the hundred days people started reaching out and telling me how much they enjoyed doing it along with me, and asked me to continue. That support, along with the realisation that watercolour paper was costing me a fortune led to opening the store. I figured if I made a couple of sales a month to pay for art supplies that’d be a success, and anything on top of that would be a bonus.  

Have any unexpected collaborations come from this work? Yes, it’s been wild. Re: News contacted me last year wanting to collaborate on a series for Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori/Māori Language Week. They paid me to licence it for the collab which was incredible because a lot of organisations would expect that stuff for free. I’ve had a few other commissions too. I got to do a non-instagram collab with an amazing art/tattoo studio called Tuatahi who are collecting stories from their whānau and iwi to put into a repository and I got to illustrate one of the stories. It was such a privilege and something I think I might like to do with my own iwi one day.

Where can we see more of your work? Online at kupurau.nz or on Instagram at @kupu.rau.