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andrewg  > Vacation > 6. Hokitika
NZ Part 6. On the road to Hokitika, New Zealand, in town, and moving on. December 2005.
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andrewg > Andrew feeling good on the west coast!
andrewg > A foggy day on the west coast makes it feel very still and quiet.
andrewg > An internet cafe in Hokitika, tucked away in the back of a video-rental shop.
andrewg > A rainy night in Hokitika. Actually, all my nights in Hokitika were rainy. I took this picture sitting in a big old log chair outside a cafe where I had dinner. I sat under an awning, listening to the rain fall above and around me while I wrote in my journal, and just silently sat and enjoyed the evening.
andrewg > The morning after the night of the previous image I awoke to a wet, rainy day, just like the night before. I had wanted to go hiking, but I didn't want to go sloshing through mud all day. I figured I'd move on, but I'd look around the town first. Hokitika is an artsy kind of town - it's the center for jade and bone carvers on the South Island. One of the carving studios, Bonez-n-Stonez, sometimes opens its doors to people who want to try their hand at it. On impulse, I decided to stay on that day and make a bone carving. I'd seen so many that I liked (and even bought a few), and my conversation with Eric (a man who carves them) had piqued my interest. I stopped into the studio and spoke with the fellow who runs it, a master carver named Steve. I went to a little cafe next door and got something hot to drink, and doodled for a whlie. I eventually came up with design, meant to symbolize the sun and waves, two of the many themes of my time in New Zealand. I brought it back to Steve, along with a couple of alternatives. He thought it was ambitious but that I could do it, and I headed upstairs to make a clean version. There were a half-dozen other people there already working on their designs. Everyone else had chosen to work in jade, a dark green stone. I chose bone for a few reasons: I thought this design would look nicer in white than green, I thought the design would look more robust in bone than in the delicate green jade, and finally Steve thought it would be best in bone as well! It was a good decision, as bone is much easier to work with than jade. When you carve jade, you need to work under a continuous stream of running water. Bone you can just drill and sand like a piece of wood. The first step in making my pendant was to draw a clean copy of the design, and then cut it out carefully with an X-acto knife so I could transfer it onto the bone.
andrewg > Steve's collection of bones. The Maori used whale bones for their jewelry, but these are cow bones. I chose the one on top for my pendant. I turned it over to the non-gross side and traced my design onto it.
andrewg > Once I'd drawn my design on the bone, John (Steve's assistant) cut out the general shape for me.
andrewg > Steve smooths out the rough cut, getting my piece of bone ready to be worked.
andrewg > The opening stage. I've drawn the design on the bone, and John and Steve cut the basic outer form. The three large holes give me a place to get started on the carving. The piece is curved (it's bulging out towards us in this photo), and is actully quite thick (a quarter-inch or so). I think Steve cut it thick so that I'd have less chance of breaking off small pieces during carving. But the thickness meant that everything took a long time. It took me a couple of minutes of patient drilling to make each of these holes. Working with a small hand-drill on a very small piece requires steady hands and a lot of trust in the drill. I controlled the drill speed with a foot switch, but generally kept it going full-speed most of the time.
Andrew feeling good on the west coast!
> Andrew feeling good on the west coast!
Andrew feeling good on the west coast!
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Keywords: andrew forest hokitika new zealand
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