Lissy and Rudi Robinson-Cole Photo: Ralph Brown
Lissy and Rudi Robinson Cole are indisputably the King and Queen of Crochet. The married couple are on a mission to bring light, warmth and te ao Māori to all of Aotearoa New Zealand with their electrically colourful woollen work.
Wharenui Harikoa Photo: Samuel Evans
The couple told Mark Amery on Culture 101 why joy can be a critical part of great art.
Lissy was drawn to crochet because, unlike knitting, "it was just one little hook".
Rudi had been an engineer before finding his path in arts and crafts.
"I met the love of my life [Lissy] ... and could see that crochet was amazing - I really took to it.
"I like the rhythmic motion of it - it's very meditative. You're able to get in your creative zone... and just be truly you."
Lissy's father Colin was a fashion designer and she grew up with a "great love" of all textiles and making.
She came late to crochet and it straight away "connected me to my soul's purpose", she says.
"The metaphor for crochet is connection. It gave a visual language to all that we know to be true: that we are connected by aroha through time and space.
"Like a piece of string, we are connected. The wool represents that tie to our tūpuna, and also to each other."
Making something with colourful wool was so "profoundly joyful", Lissy says.
"I didn't realise crochet was so easy to learn, and so easy to make things, so I was excited - being such an impatient person - that you could make something really, really quickly, so it grabbed me."
Working together in crochet is the couple's "happy space", Rudi says.
When they married in 2017, they made everything for the wedding and that was the catalyst to become full-time artists.
"We went out onto the deck [at the wedding] and Lissy was going, "C'mon, we need to manifest this feeling because this is how we want to live our lives: to be creating, and in our happy space."
"It was crochet or bust," says Lissy. "And it still is."
Last summer, their Wharenui Harikoa - a giant, to-scale, glow-in-the-dark, neon, crocheted woollen wharenui, created with many collaborators - drew many New Zealanders to the Waikato Museum.
It barely fitted into the gallery, and took 5000 balls of wool. Fusing Māori art and contemporary craft, Lissy (Ngāti Hine, Ngāti Kahu) and Rudi (Ngaruahine, Te Arawa, Ngāti Paoa and Waikato Tainui) described their "House of Joy" as a “refracting prism of tūpuna-inspired light that shines across the sky like a rainbow”. Certainly, it was a joy to behold.
She relates a vivid dream where she invited British pop singer George Michael to perform in Wharenui Harikoa - and this inspired her to ask living artists to come, too.
Rudi Robinson Cole Photo: Coralie Bee
They hoped it would evoke the feeling of being enveloped by "Nani's blankie".
"I can see the wool in our whare can absorb the human experience - the joy, the pain... everything! It can take it, it can hold it for us.
"What a blanket denotes: safety, warmth, memory.... we wanted to make our whare accessible to absolutely everybody, and a beautiful, safe space for humans."
Previously, the couple even covered their car in crochet - a work suitably entitled Joy Ride.
Rudi Robinson-Cole in his crocheted safety vest Photo: Ralph Brown
This focus on joy - rather than beauty - is central to their work.
"The joy is borne from immense loss and pain and grief," says Lissy, citing the passing of many family members.
"It's about us celebrating life while we have it. This life is absolutely amazing. It's absolutely about celebrating our dead ones... our people... humanity.
"Because the feeling that it induces in us is so powerful and transformative, that I just think, why wouldn't you want to create work that brings that energy into this world - because this world is freaky!"
Now, it’s Te Wai Pounamu’s turn with a new large-scale work made with Hollie Tawhiao to premiere at the Nelson Arts Festival.
In Whakatū Nelson the commissioned Waka Of Dreams: Punanga Pohewa will be accompanied by an exhibition of Lissy and Rudi’s crochet-and-light-based sculptures at the Refinery ArtSpace, 24 October to 23 November.
The Robinson-Coles also have an installation as part of Auckland Art Week, which runs 4-13 October.
Taurima Neon Art by Lissy and Rudi Robinson-Cole, Elliot Street Photo: Luke Foley Martin
Taurima Neon Art - originally commissioned for Matariki in 2023 - is suspended above inner-city Elliot Street: crochet-like neon artworks reflecting the street's 500-year culinary history.
