Carving out new career
Surfboards fuel artistic passion
SEVEN years ago Aylmer Kenny picked up a surfboard for the first time. Not to ride, but to carve.
Now the Coolangatta resident has quit his fulltime job running a cafe as part of a sales admin team, to pursue his hobbyturned-passion of surfboard carving.
The 55-year-old has enough work to keep him going until March next year, during which time he will make more than 20 unique art pieces, each telling a different story about the client’s life and family through Maori designs.
Mr Kenny said it was his spiritual ancestors who pushed him into the hobby in 2012, after he spotted a carved surfboard in an art gallery at Kirra.
“I don’t surf, but I was just drawn to it, like it was calling to me,” he said.
So he bought a cheap surfboard and peeled the fibreglass off, intending to carve in it.
But the middle of the night, he said he felt himself being shaken awake, though no one was in the house.
For a whole week, he experienced the same sensation at 3 o’clock every morning.
“I was freaking out,” Mr Kenny said.
“And when I’d wake up in the morning I’d have a vivid picture of a fish hook (hei-matau).
“My mother is a Maori healer and told me my ancestors were coming through.”
But he said the message came with a warning: He needed to use the gift they were giving him or they would bestow it upon someone else.
Mr Kenny carved dozens of surfboards as commissions for clients when he was not working.
He is just one of five people in the world who create this art.
He remembered how the first commission he did brought his client to tears.
He was paid double the asking amount because of the strong connection the man felt to the board, he said.
The boards take days to make, with commissions starting at $1500.