Carver makes gifts for tennis aces

Tikipunga bone carver Len Kay was commissioned to make gifts for Venus Williams abd David Ferrer. Photo/John Stone

Bone carvings made by a Whangarei artist have been chosen as gifts for tennis superstars Venus Williams and David Ferrer.

Len Kay was one of several artists invited by the Maori Sports Awards trust to submit designs for taonga to be given to the two tennis players who are in Auckland for the ASB Auckland Tennis Classic and Heineken Open tournaments.

The idea behind the gesture was to recognise the players' profile and celebrate the coming together of different ethnicities in the Auckland event which is gaining an international reputation.

Mr Kay carved the neck pendants out of stubs of bone from the base of deer antler.

Ms Williams' is a double piece with two manaia pendants, representing herself and her famous sister Serena. In Maori mythology the manaia is a symbol that guards against evil. Mr Ferrer's carving is a single piece with a similar but double-headed figure.

Mr Kay quipped that having his work chosen for the superstars was a case of "local old boy makes good," but bone carvings made by him and wife Candy Kay have been selling for more than 20 years. His intricate, detailed carvings are in galleries in France, Japan, USA and Australia as well as represented online at Bone Art Place.

The tennis stars' gifts might lead to more high profile commissions but Mr Kay is busy enough keeping up with demand.

"I've slowed down a little bit these days but I'm out here working most days," he said of his backyard studio in Tikipunga. Before retiring he sold bulldozers and other heavy machinery.

His grandmother was "full-blooded Ngapuhi" and his grandfather "full-blooded Irish", and while he likes to explore Maori and Celtic symbolism he is sensitive to many cultural motifs, including his USA-born wife Candy's Sioux roots.

He started out using beef bones before switching to the "cleaner" deer bone. The bone stubs drop off the deer after they shed their antlers and a new set begins to grow so no animals are hurt in the making of Mr Kay's art.

A tumble of tusks, skulls, horns, antlers and jawbones overflows from one cabinet. In another cabinet full of intricate completed treasures sits a fishhook carved from mammoth bone - as is the taonga hanging around Mr Kay's neck. Mrs Kay's sister lives in Alaska where the mammoth bone would occasionally come to light. "It's getting harder to get hold of these days," she said.

Deer bone is a sustainable resource, and in the hands of a master carver, luminously beautiful - although a stubborn piece of bone can be frustrating, Mr Kay said. "It can fight you to the very end." That's a fitting quality in gifts made especially for two of the world's toughest tennis players.