\u201cWith the studio, we aim to provide an opportunity for people to come in and make your own,\u201d Marsters said.<\/p>\n
As far as the couple are aware, it is a new offering in terms of Hawke\u2019s Bay stores, and a similar model to the Bonz n Stonz studio in Hokitika.<\/p>\n
Customers can also buy pounamu goods and carvings made by Marsters, Rakete-Stones and Rakete-Stones\u2019 dad, Pouri Rakete-Stones.<\/p>\n
The couple have been selling pounamu carvings at weekend markets for about two years, and felt there was enough demand to open a shop.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is quite rewarding being able to pass that taonga [treasure] down to someone else, being part of that story,\u201d Marsters said, of his love for pounamu carving, which he started as a hobby two years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo being able to do this full-time was the next step.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithin a month of deciding, we found the shop, we got the lease, we just kind of crammed it into one month – it was quick but exciting and all fell into place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raising awareness about the cultural significance of pounamu stone is also a goal of the store, and adding \u201ca splash of culture in the middle of town\u201c.<\/p>\n
Rakete-Stones\u2019 father, Pouri, who lives in Greymouth, gave the couple the idea of starting the shop and also helps source pounamu stone, which comes from the West Coast.<\/p>\n
Rakete-Stones said the store\u2019s location in the heart of Napier was ideal. It was formerly occupied by clothing shop Jacqui E.<\/p>\n
Pounamu stone is protected by South Island iwi Ng\u0101i Tahu and has cultural significance for M\u0101ori.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is pur\u0101kau [legend] around it – there was a taniwha, Poutini, that went up to the Bay of Plenty and saw a woman that he thought was beautiful and stole her from her husband and ran away with her, and her husband chased him,\u201d Rakete-Stones said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe went back to the Arahura River and wanted to protect her and turned her into pounamu.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the whakapapa significance of it for Maori.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said pounamu carvings are traditionally passed down, gifted or made specifically for someone.<\/p>\n
Rakete-Stones is a teacher at Omahu School and Marsters previously worked as a teacher aide, but the pair are both going full-time with the shop.<\/p>\n
Nancy Rakete-Stones is the sister of Magpie and Hurricanes prop Pouri Rakete-Stones.<\/p>\n
Bookings for a two-hour session to carve your own pounamu can be made through the Pou Creations website and cost $300 per person.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWith the studio, we aim to provide an opportunity for people to come in and make your own,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,103824,31861,1550,2199,2109,78,3607,111,139,69,19276,90,1864,2680,384,103823,23367,75527,223,165,810,29591,37960],"class_list":["post-156924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-carve","tag-carving","tag-centre","tag-city","tag-family","tag-in","tag-napier","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-offering","tag-on","tag-opened","tag-opens","tag-people","tag-pounamu","tag-studio","tag-taonga","tag-the","tag-their","tag-up","tag-wanting","tag-workshops"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}