Page 57 - Australian Wood Review №103 2019

University of Tasmania that carving

really took off for me.

So you studied furniture design but went
in another direction?

I was never too enthusiastic about the

idea of making furniture but
I loved the people at the university
and the access to the knowledge.
I consider myself fortunate to have

come through in the early 2000s
when Kevin Perkins and John Smith
were teaching at the university. These
people don’t arrive at the place they’re
at by accident…you’re in the shadow

of big trees, so to speak.

Did you go into a related profession after
Above: Hape Kiddle
leaving university? different forms and other stories.
cradles a Huon pine bowl
The Aboriginal coolamon bowl, for form from his Holding
By second year I was already example. For me, this simple form, Water series.
making and putting my work into so absolutely useful in day to day life Opposite: An explorative
form in Huon pine for Hape
exhibitions, selling work and doing of the indigenous people of this land, Kiddle’s Holding Water
commissions. It took off rather is a wonderful object. A form that series, later scorched and
wax finished.
quickly and I think that was because speaks of connection to land.
I’d always been shaping.
What are you trying to say with your work?
Visually and through hashtags, some of

your work references the koru or spirals In my work I want people to gravitate
often seen in Maori work. Why is this? to an understanding that they’re of
this place. That wherever you stand,
My first carvings were in bone. if you look after it and engage with it,
Traditional Maori fish hooks (hei then that’s your place.

matau) and hei tiki – those sorts
of things. But living outside of I think I’m trying to point to our
Aotearoa there are so many other natural connection with the world
experiences that have influenced my and our place within it.

work. Maori design is what I grew up I’m horrified about how we are
with and these lines are very much walking on the planet at the
instinctual, they’re in my DNA. But moment. We need to lighten off
as time goes on, living in Australia, how we use the earth. My work
I’ve come to explore a different place, is all about trying to indicate the

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