Create and design your own siapo ornaments with the Fa’asamoa Arts team! Siapo, or Samoan tapa cloth, are decorated barkcloth textiles made from the inner bark of the paper mulberry tree. Siapo features intricate patterns and designs created using natural dyes and techniques like freehand painting or rubbing from carved boards.

The hands-on activity — titled “Mai le makou fale i lou fale: From our house to yours” — gives participants a chance to engage in designing an ornament that is in the formation of a Samoan fale (or house) using Samoan motifs and a palette of colors inspired by Samoan siapo.

About Fa’asamoa Arts

Folauga ole Tatau ma laga Aganu’u Fa’asamoa (a.k.a. Fa’aSamoa Arts) is a non-profit organization in American Samoa whose purpose is to breathe new life into the traditional Samoan artistic practices of their past by bringing these practices into our present and future through creation, education, and research. Cofounded by Su’a Uilisone Fitiao, a traditional Samoan Tufuga ta Tatau (tattoo master) and siapo maker, and Reggie Meredith Fitiao, MFA, a Professor of the Arts and siapo maker.  

About the artists

Reggie Meredith Fitiao is a Professor of the Arts, both contemporary and traditional. She is a fourth generation siapo maker who acknowledges her great-grandmother Saiselu Tuimalealiifano Meredith as one of the women who made siapo in Leone. She credits her knowledge of siapo making to Auntie Mary J. Pritchard. Working with her mother and Aunties Marylyn and Adeline for many years have inspired her to work collaboratively while continuing to pursue an individual style of siapo.

Su'a Ulisone Fitiao is a Tufuga ta Tatau, wood carver, and siapo maker. His family moved to American Samoa in 1969. He learned the traditional form of painting called siapo in the late 1970s from the late Mary J. Pritchard. He is now a Tufuga ta Tatau, a traditional Samoan tattoo master, after apprenticing for Su’a Lafaele Suluape for almost seven years. He embraces the ancestral and sacred art forms of tatau and siapo, working to ensure that these unique parts of Samoan culture last for generations.

Ticket info

This event is part of de Youngsters Day Out 2025, open to every Bay Area family, free of charge. Learn more.

Contact info

Public Programs
publicprograms@famsf.org
415.750.7694