Turning wood in Rangataua

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 2, Issue 40, 26 March 1985, Page 6

Turning wood in Rangataua

Four years after coming to the Ruapehu region to do three weeks work on the Sunbeam Lodge, Paul Beckett is still here. He remained for the skiing and the slower pace of life, and now makes a living carving large wooden bowls and urns at his Rangataua workshop. However, as most of his pieces are sold in the cities, locals rarely see Paul's work. To remedy this, he joined forces recently with Alan Brown and James Clifford of Makers Ltd., of Raetihi, to display his work at the Desert Fair in Waiouru. Mountain red beech, rimu, matai and kauri, are some of the woods Paul works with. The large size of his urns enables him to show off the wood's beautiful grain to its full advantage. He gets his wood from wherever he can — old houses, windblown trees, rubbish dumps and a number of other places he likes to keep secret. Most of the urns and bowls are sold in Auckland and Wellington, although some grace offices in New York and others are sold in Sydney, Australia.