Tama - NZ Pounamu/greenstone - Last post for '08! - pg99 - Tiki Carving

T Tamapoutini Member Aotearoa (New Zealand) Joined: Aug 30, 2006 Posts: 1530	T Tamapoutini Posted posted on Sun, Sep 23, 2007 3:40 AM BenZ: If anyone has the ability to carve an outstanding waka huia its you! Apart from genuine old pieces, the majority of these you will see are really simple/crude knock-offs. There are always a few genuine artist-carvers out there who do produce high-quality/knowledgeable work, but oh man start thinking thousands instead of hundreds... :o Hope youre ok B, havent seen sign of you for a couple of days? Surely you dont sleep or take weekends off? :wink: Tipua: You missed out 'father of a 5yr old daughter/3yr old son and partner of a MadWoman!!' :lol: Yeah, it can be tiring at times but my life is all the richer for it. I can see the resemblance of the latest pebble-tiki to the kumara God statue (one of those was unearthed in my hometown during digging work on a school playground in my youth - simple crop talismans to magically aid crop yield). Ive always liked those things & have always planned to make one one day. I was drawn to Saxotikas boulder tikis because they reminded me of them. Big stuff? Ive only dabbled with 'going large' with limestone. I really enjoy being able to walk around a piece and have a bit of a workout while carving. The new/improved workshop will have a covered outdoor area for larger stone & wood working. :D Im also drawn to those bone boxes (waka tupapaku), images of them anyway..haha As there name suggests these boxes were the final resting place of the bones of higher born Maori. After death the body was either buried or left to the elements for a year or more. The remains were then gathered, cleaned and painted with red/brown oche and finally ensconced into the bone box (sometimes just the skull - cool Humpty Dumpty Tiki boxes..) The main reasons that not many survive today is that they were often then hidden away in caves, standing upright, dug into the ground via a carved spike. These often rotted away over time & the box then fell onto its side - where one side was rotted out. This was/is the state of many that survive today. Sad but true. More waka huia pics: The first shot shows the freshly waxed lid and the difference from the unwaxed - probably the first clean its had in 34 years! Hopefully a bit of carving this week, but Im easily distracted.. Happy carving all! Tama :)

BenZ: If anyone has the ability to carve an outstanding waka huia its you! Apart from genuine old pieces, the majority of these you will see are really simple/crude knock-offs. There are always a few genuine artist-carvers out there who do produce high-quality/knowledgeable work, but oh man start thinking thousands instead of hundreds... :o
Hope youre ok B, havent seen sign of you for a couple of days? Surely you dont sleep or take weekends off? :wink:

Tipua: You missed out 'father of a 5yr old daughter/3yr old son and partner of a MadWoman!!' :lol: Yeah, it can be tiring at times but my life is all the richer for it.
I can see the resemblance of the latest pebble-tiki to the kumara God statue (one of those was unearthed in my hometown during digging work on a school playground in my youth - simple crop talismans to magically aid crop yield). Ive always liked those things & have always planned to make one one day. I was drawn to Saxotikas boulder tikis because they reminded me of them.
Big stuff? Ive only dabbled with 'going large' with limestone. I really enjoy being able to walk around a piece and have a bit of a workout while carving. The new/improved workshop will have a covered outdoor area for larger stone & wood working. :D
Im also drawn to those bone boxes (waka tupapaku), images of them anyway..haha As there name suggests these boxes were the final resting place of the bones of higher born Maori. After death the body was either buried or left to the elements for a year or more. The remains were then gathered, cleaned and painted with red/brown oche and finally ensconced into the bone box (sometimes just the skull - cool Humpty Dumpty Tiki boxes..) The main reasons that not many survive today is that they were often then hidden away in caves, standing upright, dug into the ground via a carved spike. These often rotted away over time & the box then fell onto its side - where one side was rotted out. This was/is the state of many that survive today. Sad but true.

More waka huia pics: The first shot shows the freshly waxed lid and the difference from the unwaxed - probably the first clean its had in 34 years!

Hopefully a bit of carving this week, but Im easily distracted..

Happy carving all!
Tama :)

Post #334331 by Tamapoutini on Sun, Sep 23, 2007 3:40 AM