[J Marcus]

By laurenb: "Oooh.. very nice take on the hei matau. I can think of a few other traditional Maori designs that would accept pearls well... perhaps the sympatico stems from the marine/coastal nature of the folk culture."


Thank you, laurenb. ...and thank you for the link to the Maori style carvings. Those are beautiful and skillfully, intricately well-done. My friend and occasional partner in crime, Ken Fredericks, has been working with, shaping and carving fossil ivories and fabricating mountings for important scrimshaw pieces for about 30 years. He draws his designs from many different cultures as well as nature for his work. I choose one that he told me was based on a Hawaiian design because I felt that since it was going to New Zealand, it might be presumptuous of me to send a Maori based design from the US.

I've researched and thought about using some of the ancient celtic designs as a jumping off place for some of my work. Might be some interesting ways to incorporate pearls into them, but have never gotten around to it with all the projects I always seem to have going.

Interestingly enough, I know a Maori woman here in Bellingham, of all places. I don't think she was raised in NZ, though. A few years ago she and her husband traveled to New Zealand and met some of the Maori community there. They had a special celebration and feast to recognize her as one of them to welcome her back among her people.

So sad about the Maori person you spoke with. Hate crimes are such terrible and degraded acts. A while back I was talking with one of my good friends and we came to the realization that the great majority of the persons we think of as heroic in the last half century or so are people "of color."

Marc
http://www.flyrodjewelry.com/home.html