SPOTLIGHT on: Michel Mulipola artist extraordinaire...

This weekend has been full on and it got me thinking that each month, in this blog, I'll like to feature some of the amazing things that are happening for our Pasifika people out there.

This weekend I had the privilege of speaking at and participating in the inaugural 'South Auckland writers Festival' which was held during the weekend at the Mangere East village community halls and although the numbers were small (I've been accustomed to in our community with various events) I really enjoyed listening to the experiences and perspectives of different writers and artists.

One of those artists was Michel Mulipola (please excuse the spelling mistake on the pic as it was sent to me by someone else at the talk) and what was fascinating about him was that he shared about being an international artist (comic drawings), a professional wrestler and an International gamer who had made it recently to Las Vegas to represent NZ! So that not only was he good at drawing, which had been his dream in school but also in two other arena as well.

He represents himself as a Samoan artist brought up in Mangere and it was neat to listen to his down to earth, and funny, humble way of describing some pretty amazing artwork that he's done - which is an accomplishment for a self taught artist (as he describes himself).

For example: he's designed book covers for school Journals, illustrated David Riley's Pasifika heroes books, illustrated for school journals, and now currently drawing for various comic books in USA and particularly for Professional Wrestling comic books. As well as that he also defends his title in the NZ pro wrestling arena and teaches professional wrestling to trainees. He is also a gamer in his spare time having travelled to USA on several occasions for various tournaments and came second in an International competition this month.

He's definitely a speaker that I would highly recommend for our young people to listen to and to learn from about how you can make a dream happen by just taking that first step of giving it a go. He also was very humble in not taking himself too serious in just enjoying what he is doing at the moment and was very encouraging in that his office is in his backpack which he takes everywhere with him so that people can consider different ways of working and not having to sit behind a desk or stay within four walls.

He is definitely a Samoan artist, professional wrestler, ardent gamer who is living the dream...