The Making of The Hongi

Brett Keno at ARCHIBALDS STONECARVING SYMPOSIUM 2010, Maidstone Park Upper Hutt 16-25 January 2010.

There were many challenges with "The Hongi" the first obviously was capturing the faces correctly. I altered the placement of the eyes and nose on both faces several times during the process. I often stared at people's profiles as the stopped to talk which usually resulted in some change to the face.

The hair was always going to be the focal point. I began moving down the block to the lower half where I could create hair from all sorts of shapes. I wanted each strand to be different using depth and mixing up concave and convex shapes with sharp ridged patterns for shadow. It was important that it resembled hair and could be connected to the head.

Satisfied with the lower hair I moved back up towards the head. This proved to be the most difficult - less depth to play with and a bad hairstyle could really impact on the overall look of the female. In the end I was delighted with the result.

It is just coincidence the man looks a little like me. In reality I wanted to unbalance the sculpture, a lot of hair versus no hair plus there were too many possible options for the male hairstyle - the easiest option was bald.

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