Jeremy Walsh is leading the carve-your-own space at Sands Carving Studio. Photo / Danielle Zollickhofer
Pounamu in all kinds of shapes and sizes, with and without marked-out patterns, are spread across several workstations at the Sands Carving Studio workshop.
Dust particles are dancing through the air as six carvers work on taonga in front of them, to a background track of humming polishers.
A lot has happened since Alex Sands (Ngāti Kahungunu o Te Wairoa) and his wife, Preet, opened the manufacturing gallery in Hamilton’s suburb of Frankton in 2024.
They not only curated their retail area in front of the workshop to give taonga more space to breathe and welcomed a new carver to the team, but they also now have eight spaces for carve-your-own clientele.
“It’s been a lot of hard work,” Alex says.
“We want to share the love of pounamu and show people what can be done with it. Carve your own is a natural progression for us.”
Alex says he was previously offered to buy a carve-your-own space in Hokitika.
“But it wasn’t the right time, and I’m not a teacher.”
Now, with a bigger space and team in Hamilton, things are different. Fulltime carver Jeremy Walsh leads the carve-your-own space.
Alex says carving a taonga yourself is personal.
“You are bringing it to life,” Alex says.
“Pounamu is known in te ao Māori to carry mana, to carry spirit.
“By making it [yourself] you are embedding it with your own spirit... You are making [pounamu, an already special material] more special.”
Alex describes the carve-your-own offering as a full-day experience, though a simplistic design can be achieved in about three hours.
He acknowledges that any self-made taonga will look different to the work of an experienced carver, though both are equally special.
“Some of us carvers, we can do things that a beginner couldn’t do,” Alex says.
“I am able to create a piece that tells someone’s entire whakapapa through specific carving.
“In making your own, you are telling your story in your own way.”
So far, more than 40 people have carved their own taonga at Sands Carving Studio, including New Zealand social media celebrities Uncle Tics, who attended with Uncle Jack Tai, and Matua Bill.
The latter attended with his son Benjamin.
Matua Bill (Bill Tahuri Whaanga) says he and his son are neurodiverse, and creating something, like carving and making music, was an outlet for them.
They carved a nguru (nose flute), which is a taonga pūoro.
“This is medicine,” Tahuri Whaanga says.
“[Benjamin] gets tools, experiences... we get a memory [and] he is reconnecting to his ancestry.
“I don’t consider myself an artist at all, but ... we’re [Maori] storytellers by nature.
“Giving [my son] the ability to be able to tell stories through art... that’s good.”
Aside from opening the carve-your-own space, Sands Carving Studio has welcomed Aaron Marshall to the team of fulltime carvers.
Marshall joins Alex and Preet, Walsh, Yuki Tanaka, and Samuel Potter, and part-time jeweller John Mayo, of Frankton Jewellers, and binder Alicia Taylor.
Since opening in 2024, Alex has also completed a couple of other special projects.
He carved the world’s first whale bone pare (ornamental carving traditionally placed above the entrance of a meeting house) and pounamu and silver tiripou (walking stick), which he created to challenge himself.
While the pare is not for sale, Alex says he made the tiripou with three people in mind.
In the end, it went to Rangatira Mahaki Albert.
Another special piece was one he created on behalf of the Baha’i Community of New Zealand, which commissioned him to create a taonga to gift to the Kuini to reignite a relationship.
The design, an obsidian bowler hat with two pounamu fantails, is based on the history of King Tāwhiao and the King Country - Te Rohe Pōtae (the area of the hat).
Alex also collaborated with Preet on a few pieces recently, and Jason Momoa remains a repeat customer, he says.
While Alex is proud of his achievements, he is already looking ahead.
“We’ve done so much work to get to this point, but because I’m an artist, there is so much more I want to do.”
He recently received a 4.5-tonne piece of pounamu from the South Island, and his goal is to create the world’s biggest pounamu carving out of it.
Another dream of his is to produce a book or to create a symposium or exhibition on an international scale.
“[I want to make] people see the magnitude of taonga and pounamu.”
Danielle Zollickhofer is the Waikato news director and a multimedia journalist at the Waikato Herald. She joined NZME in 2021 and is based in Hamilton.