Harakeke piupiu a gift of connection

Hospitality entrepreneur Joe Benge has a special connection with his favourite artwork. The co-owner of the new Nelson burger and beers joint, The Dog’s Bone told the story behind the piece to Matt Lawrey.

Joe Benge was “blown away” when he first saw his favourite artwork.

The harakeke piupiu was handwoven by his mother, Bronwyn Billens, and presented to him as a gift to celebrate his graduation from Victoria University of Wellington in 2017.

“It was pretty special. There was lot of toi Māori around me when I was growing up in Golden Bay, but I’d spent a long of time in Wellington totally disconnected from all that, so it felt pretty significant,” he said.

A piupiu is a woven garment made of harakeke that hangs from a belt known as a whatu. They are mainly used for ceremonial adornment and kapa haka performances. Joe’s is designed to be worn over the shoulder, and the first time he put it on was for his graduation ceremony.

“It was super cool, especially with all the Māori and Pasifika celebrations that were happening at what’s a pretty hoity-toity event. It felt really good to be connected to that.”

Joe knew his mum, a passionate harakeke weaver, was making it for him from flax harvested from where he grew up. He suspects she based the colour on the contents of his wardrobe.

“I had a bit of an obsession with purple at the time,” he laughs.

The artwork takes pride of place in the inner-city flat that Joe shares with his brother and is displayed on a stand in the living room, made by his father, Geoff Benge.

Joe whakapapas to NgātiTama, who supported him at university and have also given him work since graduation, Te Ātiawa and Te Arawa.

He left Golden Bay at 17 when he moved to Auckland to play bass in a heavy funk band called Tom Dfrop.

“We never recorded anything but we played heaps of shows and in some cool venues, like The King’s Arms. It was a pretty big culture shock coming straight out of the bush and moving into Grey Lynn.”

After a year in the Auckland music scene, though, Joe had run out of money.

“I didn’t know what I was doing, so I ran away back to Tākaka and found my feet again, and then moved to Wellington.”

Joe spent eight years based in the capital, much of it servicing coffee machines for Havana Coffee.

“It was cool. I got to travel all over the country, and then I decided I wanted to go to university.”

Joe did a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and International Relations. He also played a lot of music.

“I played in a surf rock band called Die Krabben, which is German for The Crabs. It was really fun.”

After graduating, Joe found himself at a crossroads.

“I was sort of expecting to find lots of radical leftist stuff going on at university and it wasn’t really my experience. I felt that a lot of the more socially progressive politics that I did encounter really didn’t understand the kind of people I know from my own family, like labourers and fishermen. I was feeling like I had all these lofty ideas from political philosophy that didn’t really connect very well with my own experiences.”

In a move designed to help Joe “ground himself,” he moved back to the Nelson region and started working for his uncle in demolition.

“It was really cool. I picked up heaps of cool skills.”

Combining a love of cooking that he had picked up years before working at The Wholemeal Café in Tākaka with his new woodworking and joinery skills, Joe fitted out a food truck that he named Kai Tangata.

“It’s enormous. It’s seven metres long and it’s got a full commercial kitchen in it.”

Joe and his friend, now co-owner of The Dog’s Bone, Arna Wilson spent four years running Kai Tangata as a business.

“Last year we did the festival season again and felt very exhausted at the end of it.”

In addition to running the food truck, Joe and Arna started the Baba Yaga’s Coffee Cart in Richmond. When, after the festival season, Arna expressed an interest in doing something else, Joe got his thinking cap on.

“I didn’t want her to leave because I like working with her and thought we could come up with something together, and so we started scheming.”

That scheming led to the popular new burger and beer joint, The Dog’s Bone, in Nelson’s Achilles Ave.

“The last eight months have been flat out figuring out how it was going to work and setting it all up,” Joe says.

Early indications suggest that Joe and Arna have come up with a winning strategy, with the place quickly proving a hit.

“We’ve had so much support. We’ve been blown away. We were absolutely not expecting it to be nearly as busy as it has been. It’s been real nice.”