Master Carver Shares Message

Maori master carver James Rickard held a workshop at the Victor Oteyza Community Art Space in Baguio City, the Philippines, this month. He spoke about the need for indigenous artists to protect their works from globalisation, encouraging the Asin carvers in attendance to “meet it [globalisation] at your own terms, your own price, and at your own time”. Rickard has been a Maori master carver for 34 years and currently teaches at the Te Puia Wananga Whakairo woodcarving school. His tour of the Philippines has so far encompassed Paete, Laguna and Asin. “Some of us have gone to North America,” he says, “but I want to come to Asia where our ancestry begins.”