Small pieces

I was commissioned to make these pieces for a friend.  They are pretty small - the bi's are 26 mm diameter for scale - and thin - the other pendants were thinner - around 3 mm thick.

I began my carving career making pieces like these latter ones and haven't made any in a while, so it was good practice to go back to my laps and remind myself how fiddly they can be!  Whatever else you do, watch your nails as thin pieces have a habit of helping you to grind the ends of your nails away.

It's all about neatness, balance and patience, making sure that as I ground the blanks they were parallel and not wedge-shaped.  Being careful!  Isn't this what carving is about?

I think it is harder to make regular forms than irregular, so am happy with the results - and that I still have the skills to make pieces like these!

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Triquetra

I carved this piece, a Triquetra or three-lobed Irish knot, during my workshop with Deborah Wilson in 2013. It shows off the beautiful Cassiar stone from British Columbia.

There are several meanings applied to this simple knot-form.  In Christianity it has been linked with the Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Ghost.  However, its use predates Christianity in Western Europe and Neopaganism has sometimes used it to signify the tripartite division of the world - land, sea and sky.  Whatever meaning you apply to it, it is a deeply satisfying form to carve.

​Heart-shaped Manaia

This was a commission from a friend, to her own design.  I carved it out of a piece of South Westland inanga, and what fun I had with the variations in hardness in the rock, not only with the white, pure nephrite crystals but also with strong variations in hardness within the rest of the rock!

The lower picture by Amy Franz is of my friend during the blessing of the manaia, near her home in NZ.  It's an evocative picture and I love the atmosphere of the moment.  It's a pity I couldn't be there!

The word manaia is derived from the word mana, which means prestige and power.  The design incorporates the head of a bird, the body of a man and the tail of a fish.  But there are different levels at which to view this piece.  The design is heart-shaped overall, with its obvious connotations, with the left and centre representing the manaia spirit.  The heart motif is repeated at a smaller scale, and the koru is represented in the tail, symbolising new growth, strength and peace.  The carving has a paua eye.  It is one of the more complicated pieces I have made.  I only polished the part of the carving which represents the spirit to reinforce the importance of it within the whole.

The manaia is interpreted as representing the sky, earth and sea, but also being the messenger between this world and the realm of the spirits.  As such, they are seen as protecting the wearer from evil.

On a personal note, during carving, I found that the eye-socket often had a drop of water and a small bubble in it, and it felt like I was being watched - I found that a little spooky!

But I'm very happy with the resulting work, and most importantly, so is the new owner.

Dumortierite pendants

Dumortierite is a rare and unusual mineral found in only a handfull of countries around the world.  It is an aluminium-boron silicate, and is typically found as a cryptocrystalline mass with other minerals, forming a rock.  It's the boron which gives it a blue colour in the case of this Mozambican stone.  It's hard, being 8.0 - 8.5 on Moh's scale.  My 60 grit flexible diamond belt was up for the job but only new burrs and sheets of Wet & Dry would grind it.  After that they just polished it!

I was approached by a friend who wanted matching pieces made for himself and his wife for their forthcoming wedding anniversary.  As such, they needed to be made out of the same piece of stone, and show colouring and other similarities across the pair.  These pieces have that, including the pale weathering crust at the bottom, but also a fine line of a black mineral near their tops - it can just be seen.

The near-identical pieces were finished as shown, one with a leather thong and the other to take a jump-ring and chain.  They were completed in March 2020.

Hei Matau

Here are three of a batch of matau that I carved in 2008. They are made from
South Westland stone which is of variable translucency and mid – dark green, with brownish flecks.  I had to be careful when selecting the stone due to fractures that are found throughout it.

The matau is a composite of fish and gill-hook, and was worn around a persons neck for safe keeping in-between use.  It signifies different things according to different authors who know more about the subject than I do (!): abundance and plenty; strength and determination; peace, prosperity and health and ; good luck and safe journeys, especially over water.

Items from this group live in Switzerland & Canada.

Chinese-style Bi

I carved this Bi in South Westland Field inanga in early 2009. The ornamental radiating furrows are on both sides.

Bi have been carved in China since the Neolithic.  Many are extravagantly engraved with symbols representing heaven or the sky.  Although the original significance has been lost it is believed they represent the beginning of humanity seeing itself in the broader context - a person surrounded by the universe.

Beautiful stone!

Shown on the left are two pendants.  The larger one on the left is Tangiwai, aka Bowenite, from near Milford Sound, made and given to me by Buddy Tainui. The one on the right is a representation of  a "Chinese blade", one of a batch I carved in Cowell nephrite for my rowing club in South Africa. The silver-work was done for me by a Cape Town jeweller, Saeed Davids. Both exhibit the beautiful translucency that makes these minerals famous.

Make it SPECIAL!

I was given a piece of (probably Australian) chrysoprase in 2007, carved the cabochon in 2008, and then made the sterling silver mount (perforated with the Irish three-coil spiral) whilst being taught by Cormac Cuffe in Dublin in 2009.

​Buddy's batch

Buddy is a wonderful mentor and teacher, as well as a friend.  He has taught me many things, including introducing me to carving in the first place.  When I last visited him he was kind enough to give me a bag of beautiful pieces - they included items that were unfinished, some were broken, others had a problem somewhere along the line, more that may have ended up as spares - multiple right-handed earrings and no left ones for example, blanks that were awaiting their turn in the production line and offcuts.  All were inspirational to me!

I love the high standard of design, the balance of the pieces, the boldness of line, the quality of the stone, the fineness of the work and of course the high standard of craftsmanship.  It was a joy to tinker with them, to improve where I could, to finish them.  As a sample of work it gives me a direction to travel - to improve my own work.

At left is only a small sample of the pieces.

Some I finished as I think was intended.  To others, like the ear-rings below, I added my own touch - I think freshwater pearls and nephrite go together really well and you will see this theme from me in the future!

And when I have time to go back and rummage through the pieces again I'll come up with fresh ideas and enthusiasm to work on them anew.  Thanks Buddy!

Jade hoop pendants

A client from the USA who ordered two jade rings also wanted two identical pendants carved from the same piece of Californian "Blue" stone.  He wanted them to be oval and to look as if they had been river-tumbled.  This was a humbling example of bringing fruition to someone else's ideas.  The loops were easy enough to form but then came my efforts to match the finish with the pieces of river-tumbled nephrite and other stones (pictured behind the piece for reference): distressing the hoops with chips, flats and highlights, all with a mixture of rough, satin and gloss finishes was an interesting process to me.  The leather thong matched the rustic nature of the pieces and they came out to the satisfaction of the client, happily.

Celtic Crosses

Here is a small batch of Celtic Crosses that I began carving in 2013, inspired as I am by the wonderful craftsmanship found in the Celtic High Crosses in Eire, and finished in early 2014 after our move. They are made of wonderful BC Cassiar nephrite. I learnt a lot from this batch because the form did not allow for much variation and I had to conform to the demands of the design. Whilst living in Cape Town I was lucky enough to meet Archbishop-emeritus Desmond Tutu (one of my heroes) and gave him one of them.

Gum-leaf pendant and ear-rings

This "set" is made from Lillooet, BC, nephrite, with sterling silver mounts.  It is quite soft, but a wonderful pale green colour with pale brown marks, as you can see.  I carved the pieces in 2013 in imitation of gum-leaves - you can find the trees growing in many parts of the world including Canada.

Lillooet is a fascinating town which was the starting point for the Cariboo Wagon Road taking miners and supplies to the mid- to late 19th Century gold-rushes in the Rockies.  It is situated high above the raging Fraser River, and is the place where nephrite was first discovered in Canada.  In celebration of this, the town council arranged for 30 large blocks of nephrite to be cut, polished and placed around the town.  I was discovered by one of the residents involved in the project, hugging a particularly beautiful piece weighing about half a tonne, but after establishing my carving credentials was welcomed and told about the best places to buy rough stone!  They are very friendly in those parts!

Pendants and toggles

Shown here are four simple pendants in (from top L) serpentine from the Arahura River, lovely flower jade (Marsden) and two pieces of pounamu from South Westland. The toggles in the picture on the right are made from beef bone and two types of antler.

Coiled fish form

This oval-shaped, double-sided coiled fish is made of beautiful, mid-green (sorry, the picture does not do it justice), highly translucent and hard Kutcho stone from BC.  I carved it during 2012 - 13 and found it very useful in improving my skills in carving detail on internal faces!  That maybe raises the question as to whether I'm carving for myself or my customers, but let's not discuss that here!  It was a pleasing piece to carve and I like the general idea of life renewing itself which is often associated with endless forms.

Bi's (and a yuan or two)

I carved this batch of (mostly) Bi's in early 2015. A Bi has a hole diameter that is less than the width of the ring around it. A Yuan has a hole diameter larger than the width of the surrounding ring. The Chinese have carved Bi for thousands of years and it is believed they represent a person (the hole) in the midst of the world, sky, or universe (the surrounding jade ring).

All of this batch were made from Cowell except the one on the lower right with the heart-shaped cut-out, which was made from Kutcho (BC) stone. This illustrates the range in colours and textures found in jade, even from the same area.  Members of this batch now reside in Canada & South Africa.