Kauai jeweler incorporates island spirituality in works

To speak with Kauai Carver’s Keoni Durant is to get involved in discussion about Hawaiian spirituality.

Before he says anything about his fine jewelry designs in silver and gold, or his carvings and natural-edged bowls of indigenous Hawaiian woods, he talks about his elders, his ancestors, the land, reconnection and spiritual motivations that fuel his work.

Some 28 years ago he first learned how to carve fishhooks out of “first wood, then bone, then pearl shell,” he said.

“I was born like that. I get ’em inside me, I’m kanaka maoli,” he said. “It’s intuitive, my self-expression. My grandma said I was born to feed people,” because of his prowess with fishhooks.

He started selling his wares at the Westin Kalapaki, and after about three years “these guys come find me and we talk story,” and they tried to persuade him to learn goldsmithing, but he wasn’t interested.

About three years later a friend, to whom Durant had given an ivory shark, showed him a mold he’d made of the shark. The friend then showed him sterling silver earrings and a pendant that had been cast with the mold. “It blew me away,” Durant said.

“When I make one specific item and give it to the person, I get appreciation from that person,” he said. After his friend showed him the sterling silver jewelry made from Durant’s own design, “I realized I can produce more, and I can have that same appreciation from that same item with that emotion that is in the item, again and again and again.”

He went to work in a jewelry store, mostly as a “repair guy,” but learned the tricks of the trade and became “a qualified goldsmith,” Durant said.

Then, “I bought my own equipment and started working from my garage.”

It takes some time to peruse all the glistening creations offered on the company’s website, built in recent years by Durant’s girlfriend, Heather Shadur. She manages and promotes the business, works with clients on custom orders and works with retailers that sell Durant’s designs.

Themes include tiki jewelry; fishhook jewelry; fishhook jewelry with tribal tattoo markings; jewelry featuring Tahitian black pearls; and jewelry for paddlers, stand-up or otherwise.

Items include earrings and pendants in pearl shell, rhodium-treated sterling silver, 18-karat gold or platinum, with or without Tahitian pearls, natural-edge wooden bowls and Hawaiian sculptures.

Prices start at from $125 for a hand-carved pearl shell heart and stretch into the thousands of dollars. The Hawaiian sculpture page on his website shows some of the carvings he has been commissioned to create.

He identified his primary carving teacher as the late Lincoln Young but said his father also was a carver, as were, “I believe, my people before me.”

Durant’s jewelry is widely available on Kauai and also is available at retail shops in Waikiki and Laie, as well as from his website. Site visitors can sign up for an emailed newsletter.

Durant is not just known for his jewelry or his spiritual depth. In fact, his dog may be more famous than is he.

Start typing ‘Milo the surf …’ into a Google search bar and the rest of the phrase ‘Milo the surfing Pomeranian’ will immediately pop up.

Quite the celebrity on Kauai, Durant’s Pomeranian has starred in TV commercials and other advertising for Mauna Loa macadamia nuts, among others, and in April was featured on national cable television in episode of “Aloha Vet” on National Geographic WILD.

Cruising over to the “Milo the Hawaiian Surfing Pomeranian” public-figure page on Facebook will reveal that Milo has recently become a papa to five hapa-Pomeranian-Papillon puppies.

Oh, right — Kauai Carver also has a Facebook page.

“Buy Local” runs on Fridays. Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.