ANCESTRY
My ancestry is Norwegian and French on my fathers side, hence the surname, Danish, Scottish, and English on my mothers side. I was born in Lower Hutt New Zealand on the 14th. of August 1950, and lived at Paraparaumu, fifty kilometres north-west of Wellington, for most of my younger years. My education was at Raumati School 1955-63, Kapiti College 1964-68, and Victoria University of Wellington 1969 and 1974-75.
I have been blessed with the hands that came to me from my family, a long line of jewellers, goldsmiths, and watchmakers, on my father’s French side and also very hands-on people from my mother’s side, a cooper amongst them. My father taught me basic wood working skills and I was used to making things from a young age. I started woodcarving in 1974 as a balance for the study at university. Gradually the carving became more important than the Social Sciences. The feeling that the only thing I had ever really found satisfying was making things with my hands came to the fore, so I left university to follow the carving. Initially I made furniture out of recycled native wood with the carving being something on the side. An early meeting with Owen Mapp in 75 turned me on to bone carving for which I am forever grateful to him. The carving world of the Maori has always fascinated me, and was my starting point, particularly the bone and stone.
EARLY DAYS
In 1979 I was invited by Matahi Greg Whakatuka-Brightwell to be one of the team working on the rock carving project at Mine Bay on Lake Taupo, and spent two summers carving the insitue volcanic stone of the cliffs over looking the lake.
TRAVEL
I have moved around and lived in lots of places, Mangaweka, Karamia, Holloway Road (Wellington), and Pukerua Bay. In 1982 I was awarded a grant from the QE II Arts Council (now Creative New Zealand) and travelled to Papua New Guinea for five months studying the carving cultures there, a fantastic opportunity to see a whole new world of carving. 1984 saw me in Los Angeles for the Olympic Games Arts festival as a guest artist supporting the Kahurangi Exhibition. As a carver I have also been exposed to the world of hard stone carving, through people like Donn Salt, and John Edgar, thanks is also due there. In the early eighties I started to work hard stone realising that it was the logical step from the bone.
BECOMING AN AUTHOR
In 1987 I left Pukerua Bay to marry Mary-Anne Crompton, who works for the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. My Book Bone Carving was published. This started my life as a following partner in the New Zealand diplomatic service. Almost two years in Solomon Island was followed by three years in Vanuatu, both very stimulating places for my work. Our son Jacob was born at the end of 1988, in Wellington. We moved Jacob back to Vanuatu at five weeks old and I became primary caregiver for him which slowed down the carving a bit but was rewarding in so many other ways. We had two and a half years back home after Vanuatu and then Mary-Anne took up a posting to Moscow, Russia, in 1994, were we lived for almost three and a half years. Moscow was a very rewarding posting for tools, material, and techniques, as at that time there was a lot of good quality diamond cutting gear available as well as very high quality jade and other semi precious stones. I also learned a lot about the techniques of cutting and polishing there. Christmas 1998 saw us back in New Zealand and we lived at Paraparaumu Beach, two hundred metres from high tide, for the following seven years, time enough for me to explore the stone carving as well as do several sculpture symposiums with soft stone. At the end of 2004 we moved to Geneva, Switzerland, to take up a four year posting. Returned to NZ February 2009. I am continuing to work from home at present.
Kia Ora,
Stephen Myhre