Johanna Keaioana Drew Cluney (néeJohanna Keaioana Drew; 1895–1978) was an American Hawaiian featherwork artist, conservator, and collector of featherwork.[1][2]
Early life and family
Johanna Keaioana Drew was born on October 6, 1895, in Honolulu, Republic of Hawaii (now Hawaii, United States).[3] Her parents were Keaupuiohiwa Katherine (née Stillman), and Levi J. Drew. Cluney's maternal grandfather was Henry Martyn Stillman (1822–1891), a banker from Boston who had married into the Hawaiian nobility, through his marriage to Kamaka Oukamakaokawaukeoiopiopio Stillman.[4]
In 1914, she married William Allen Cluney (1889–1941). They had five children together, and divorced in 1931.[5][6]
Career
Cluney was technically a member of Hawaiian nobility through her ancestry, but Hawaiian politics were changing at the time of her birth, and with those changes, there was a loss of social power within her family.[4] As a result she struggled financially in her early life, and became interested in the traditional Hawaiian featherwork as a spiritual source.[4]
Her collection began when someone was throwing out a peacock feather lei, and she asked if she could keep it.[4] Cluney started making feather lei in 1935.[7] She learned how to make the feather leis from an older Hawaiian woman, and early on she would collect feathers at the butchers and learned to dye them.[3] Cluney would stitch the feathers in place, and it would often take thousands of stitches.[8] For many years she worked at the Bishop Museum, helping with the conservation of the Hawaiian Royal featherwork.[1][9]
She died at the age of 82 on February 19, 1978, at Queen's Hospital in Honolulu;[3][14] and was buried at Nuuanu Memorial Park. She left a collection from 1930 to 1978 to the Kamehameha Schools of handicrafts made in feathers, shells, seeds, lauhala, and manufactured hats, called the Johanna Drew Cluney Collection.
