Artist Statement

My early work was almost entirely in nephrite jade. The New Zealand jade fields yield material equal in quality to any other source in the world. I was lucky to accumulate a wide variety of high quality jades before the proliferation of the greenstone souvenir in the 1980's saw large quantities of jades from the very best alluvial sources reduced to crude and meaningless trinkets.

The continued exploitation of New Zealand's most special and unique resource horrified me and my introduction in 1980 to metasomatised argillite, the tools material of the Maori Pakohe, initiated a new awareness in my work. Argillites, together with metasomatised basalt and greywacke, jasper and granite became my main working stones, and as I began to appreciate their inherent beauty so jade was raised higher in my esteem making it most rare and precious in its intractable green beauty.

It still is and always will be spiritually demanding for me to work jade. Most of the uncut stones that I have collected are far too unique for me to ever consider carving. They are the true forms, the true surfaces to which I aspire.

John Edgar, Excerpt from 'Stonelines - Artist Statement', May, 1989.