An Angel at my workshop

When master carver Mike Tavioni set out to do a carving commissioned by a client from South America, little did he realize it would result in the appearance of an Angel at his workshop.
Earlier this year, Douglas Murray from Chile commissioned Tavioni to do a 1.5 metre high carving for his home in Chile. He was very particular said Tavioni concerning the dimensions but allowed Tavioni complete freedom to carve what he wanted. Murray already had several works by Tavioni commissioned in earlier years. Murray told Tavioni he had cancer and wanted one more carving from him.
Tavioni searched among the many wooden logs strewn about his Atupa property surrounding his workshop and found a suitable piece of All Spice wood just over 2m long.
On standing the log up out the front of his workshop, Tavioni immediately envisioned the finished item in his mind. Due to the shape of the wood at the top end, he would carve the figure of an Angel with three lower figures reaching upwards. There were no preliminary sketches said Tavioni, the completed image was in his mind.
It was an inspired choice because as Tavioni was to recall, Murray had some two years earlier shown him a small figure of an Angel. He had taken little notice of it at the time as it seemed to be more of a trinket but it must have registered somewhere in his subconscious mind.
It was much later when he was further into the carving that Tavioni learnt that his client had a thing about Angels. Murray, a wine maker from one of Chile’s top vineyards during an earlier visit to Rarotonga, met up with Teariki Pennycook at CITC Liquor and thereafter began supplying CITC with his Montes brand wines. An Angel features on the label as the trade mark. There is even a red wine called Purple Angel.
Tavioni never told Murray what he was carving as it was to be a surprise. In an earlier article on school kids at the workshop, a photo of the carving in progress was included but the Herald was not permitted to mention the client.
Tavioni pressed on the complete the carving because it became a race against time. He knew his client was dying of cancer and his hope was to complete the work and see it reach his client in time. However, it seemed fate was to conspire against completion of the work. All Spice is a very hard wood but Tavioni was using a chainsaw and very sharp chisels. His chainsaw broke as did several chisels. So frustrated, Tavioni almost gave up. It was like fate did not want that work completed in his client’s lifetime.
When the work was finished, it went to Air Tahiti for shipment to Tahiti, Rapanui (Easter Island) then Chile but as fate would have it, the carving sat in the airport shed for two weeks before Tavioni was informed it was too heavy and too big to go by Air Tahiti. Arrangements were then made for the work to be shipped by Air NZ to Chile via Los Angeles. Unfortunately, his client passed away before he could see the carving.
The carving was shipped off to Chile in June 2010. Tavioni says Murray’s family will inherit it.
The carving depicts an Angel being held by three figures. However, Tavioni says it could mean different things to different people. For instance, the Angel could be holding on to the three figures, not wanting to leave. Perhaps this depicts someone with cancer clinging to life. Perhaps the three figures are trying to push the Angel away as though it was time for the Angel to depart, to leave this world.

By Charles Pitt

Herald Issue 463 10 June
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