Carving taps creative spirit

WILL GUTENDORF is grinning like the Cheshire cat. After two hours of careful carving, sanding and polishing, the American visitor has his own fishhook-shaped bone carving.

He’s made it under the watchful eye of carver John Fraser who runs the Bone Dude’s Bone Carving Studio in Birdlings Flat, a small township half an hour’s drive from Christchurch.

Self-taught, Fraser is quick to point out he’s not a traditional carver. That’s a calling that takes years at the hands of a Maori master carver, but he knows people have an inherent creativity – even if they don’t know it.

“I’m not teaching people how to carve,” says Fraser. “That takes too much time and patience, but I can help someone make something beautiful.”

In his bright orange workshop that’s half art gallery and half carving studio, Fraser has 16 different templates of carvings for people to choose from. They are contemporary designs of old favourites, and although they look like the hei-matau (fish hook) and the whale tail, Fraser’s quick to point out that these carvings are not the traditional Maori designs and they don’t come with the normal stories of safe travel or speed.

I choose my design and Fraser hands me a piece of deer bone roughly sawn in the shape I want. A paper template is fixed to one side. I get to work with a wood rasp, the piece of bone firmly wedged in a vice.

The process is hypnotic and incredibly relaxing. I’ve come into the studio with my head full of things to do, people to phone, stuff to remember but in almost no time at all, I’m lost in the rasping rhythm, fine white bone dust rises in small puffs with every stroke and settles everywhere like an ethereal korowai – a powder cloak of peace and quiet.

Once I have the right shape, it's time to round out the edges and Fraser shows me how to file around the sides moving the piece of bone in the vice to change the angles.

Shaping done, it’s time for the sanding. Fraser tells me this is where I can exercise some brutality. Every line, pit mark and fleck on the bone needs to be removed.

After switching sandpaper grades several times until finally buffing with the finest one, the dull white of the bone has changed to a luminous ivory, a deep clotted cream colour that glows with a life of its own.

Fraser takes over with an electric burr that shapes the fine hook feature and creates the loop. After that there’s more sanding, weaving thin strips of paper back and forwards through the loops and over the hooks.

To finish the carving off, Fraser runs the piece over his polishing wheel, drills a small hole to thread through some cord and hey presto, I have my own carving.

He says if you plan to give the carving away to someone, all the nice things you feel for that person are what you should think about while you are carving.

“Then when you give it to them and tell them you made it for them, that is the greatest gift you can give,” he says.

*The Bone Dude’s Bone Carving Studio – three-hour session costs $60 – all material provided. Closed till early 2026 – keep an eye on https://www.facebook.com/BirdlingsFlat/ for opening dates.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR – Kim Triegaardt

Kim Triegaardt is a journalist, corporate communications specialist and – as regularly as she can manage – travel writer. Kim’s professional career has taken her around the globe, but she calls the New Zealand city of Christchurch, in the South Island’s Canterbury Region, home. Kim is the founder of the corporate communications company Totally Write, which she continues to operate.

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