Overview
Pāua is prized worldwide for its beautiful shell, and is widely used in New Zealand for jewellery, inlay work, and tourist souvenirs. The rough outer layer of pāua shell is removed by very carefully applying the shell to a grinding wheel. It is then polished, using fine wet and dry sandpaper, then buffed to bring up the gloss.
The coloured shell is often embedded in black or coloured plastic to make such items as ashtrays, kitsch tikis, dolls, and lampstands. Fred and Myrtle Flutey’s living room walls at Bluff are lined with pāua shells. Their house attracts many tourists.
Throughout Te Papa, pāua shell has been transformed into a distinctive design feature – a border strip that stretches over 650 metres of flooring. The shell originally came from the coast at Riverton in Southland. Through a clever (and secret) process, the shell was flattened, cut into strips, and embedded in a resin coating to make it suitable for use as a floor tile. The pāua tiles were cut into strips, and then laid in a pattern designed by Robin Parkinson.
Several contemporary New Zealand jewellers use pāua shell to make fresh and unconventionally designed brooches, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, amulets, bangles, pendants, rings, hatpins, and beads.
Some jewellers use the shell alone, others use it in conjunction with wood, flax, bone, or feathers to evoke a New Zealand or South Pacific theme. Others combine pāua shell with silver, copper, brass or enamel, often with stunning effects as the light reflects off these rainbow shells.
Pāua jewellery is sometimes hung on stainless steel thread or on plaited and dyed cords made out of fine flax fibre, known as muka. Some jewellers use whole pāua shells, others large, bold chunks for a ‘primitive’ effect. Other jewellers use tiny beads or fragments of pāua; others again turn pāua into delicate filigree.
Because pāua are unique to New Zealand, pāua jewellery expresses a distinctive Aotearoa/Pacific spirit and looks very exotic to foreigners. At a deeper level, some
jewellers use this material to symbolise connections between sea and land in their work, or make connections between ancient and modern cultures.
Among our more distinguished and innovative jewellers who use pāua are Warwick Freeman, Jenny Pattrick, Alan Preston, Ruth Baird, Elena Gee, Jacqueline Beri, and Richard Bell.
Text originally published in Tai Awatea, Te Papa's onfloor multimedia database (2001).