I have had a long term interest in Maori woodcarving, with its intricate surface designs and powerful imagery.
I recently travelled in New Zealand and used the opportunity to research the design and carving techniques used in Maori carving. Traditionally Maori carvers used bone, shell and stone tools, but my visit to The New Zealand Arts and Crafts Institute (college for the teaching of Maori crafts such as Woodcarving and Weaving) demonstrated the high quality training and use of modern tools. The carver I chatted to was using Swiss made chisels, gouges, fluters and veiners. Sharpening was done using oil stones, slipstones. Drills and coping saws were in use along side these tools. Not so different from my own tool bag!!
Maori carving varies and includes simple forms, two dimensional and three dimensional forms decorated with complex and often fine surface patterning. Totara is the most commonly carved wood (lime is its equivalent in the UK), chosen for its ease of carving, even texture and hardwearing nature.
The carving process is similar to that in the UK, drawing and modelling designs. Transferring designs onto wood and roughing out, refining, then carving the fine detail and finishing. Some Maori carvers use machinery, others do not. The use of power tool inevitably looses something gained by direct touch and feel, and cannot create the sharpness of direct cuts with a gouge or chisel.
Maori designs can be abstract or human forms. Decoration is added as spirals, scrolls, notches, pyramids and thumbnails and combinations of these. I have always like the thumbnail cuts used and was interested to look at their production with veiners and gouges.
Traditional Maori designs follow the traditions of tribes, but the design elements and principles can be adapted with endless variation and is being developed and used by contemporary carvers.
Contemporary designs combine the best of traditional techniques and modern imagery.
Shain Whateran is one of the many successful contemporary sculptors.
