Sharing Ideas
Murihiku Pounamu
At our staff hui this week we had a presentation of one of our initiatives from Murihiku,
Gavin Thomson received Whānau Ora investment, to support those with intergenerational trauma through the development of carving skills. The Assessment Panel had believed that the idea of preserving and passing on carving knowledge was very positive.
Gavin has been supported by Hokonui Rūnanga to follow through on his dream, “I started carving by hand instead of power tools. I used sand stone and old stone rasps and files in a similar manner as our Tupuna would have carved. I finished the pieces with many laborious hours of hand sanding and hand polishing.
I have been interested in pounamu from a young age.
At age six I found my first piece of pounamu at our whānau beach Whareakeake. It presented itself to me after a sun shower a bright green piece of stone glistening on the white sand so out of place almost as if it were a piece of plastic. And from that point of I was fully seduced by pounamu.”
A Southland carver claims to have found a natural tiki inside a piece of pounamu.
Gore-based Gavin Thomson saw patterns in the stone when he starting cutting it.
"I held it up to the light, and that's when I saw the tiki."
He acquired the 10cm greenstone rock from a collector on the West Coast, and says it just looked like "an ordinary pebble" when he went to work on it.
"Once I cut into it some nice patterns starting coming out and then I held it up to the light - I was going to carve it into a tiki [but thought] nah, the patterns on it are kind of cool.
"So [I thought] I'll leave it natural."
He says his ancestors used to say pounamu were living entities, the same as humans.
"[Cutting] takes a lot of time. I do it traditionally as well like my ancestors used to, like hand-grinding using stone," he says.
"I tend to stay away from power tools."
Mr Thomson says the unusual stone is destined for a friend in Texas.
The carving extension programme was hosted by the Southern Reap (Gate) Gifted and Talented Education programme and was held at Longford Intermediate School last week.
Reap Gate programme Eastern Southland coordinator Dianne Smillie said 11 pupils took part in the programme. Year 7 and 8 pupils came from Te Tipua and Longford Intermediate schools.
The programme was tutored by Gavin Thomson, of Merino Downs.
‘‘This is an extension group of children where everyone here has a very strong interest or talent in this field,’’ Mrs Smillie said.
The pupils had to concentrate hard to master the intricate techniques needed to create pieces.
Mr Thomson said the pupils had picked up the techniques amazingly well.
Instead of using technology to create the pieces, the pupils used the traditional Maori pounamu carving methods, Mr Thomson said.
The first project was to fashion a piece from a pounamu pebble, before the pupils worked on bigger pieces, he said.
Pupils kept their creations.
Mr Thomson is a full-time carver.
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