What is a storyboard?

In days gone by Papua New Guinea artists and story tellers sometimes used to record their stories and myths on bark of trees. These were the earliest story boards known.  The problem with these storyboards were that they told the story but the board did not last long. The storyboards simply rotted away in the hard Papua New Guinea climate.

Contact with the outside world provided tools to make storyboards out of wood.  In the early 1960s, Sepik carvers started chiseling and carving story boards out hard wood.  You can sometimes encounter these old storyboards in villages in the Sepik.

As mentioned earlier, the original story boards did not last long.  The modern story boards last longer but are still susceptible to the elements. Carvers often paint or treat their storyboards with varnish and paints.

Finding antique storyboards is hard because story boards do not last long in Papua New Guinea and also because the potential buyer might not know all the facts about a given story board. Often storyboards are described older than they really are.

Where do Story Boards come from?

In Papua New Guinea, the main source of storyboards is the Sepik provinces, which are divided into the East Sepik Province and the West Sepik Province (also known as Sandaun Province)

What are the stories on a stori board?

Story boards usually picture village life, hunting, ceremonies and rituals. Now days you can have a story board made up to represent your life or a part of it. We have supplied storyboards with modern themes such as airplanes, boats and round the world trips on a motorcycle. The stori board is only restricted by your imagination.  The stori board is a great 3 dimensional picture to hang on your wall

Crocodile hunting depicted on a deep carved storyboard, softwood, earth pigments