Journal

Unfortunately, no interviews this month. I’ve been busy with my family and carving. As much as I’ve enjoyed doing the interviews, I’m preparing to wind down from them. It’s been fun and many thanks to those folks who took the time to send me their thoughts.

We spent some time at the farm in early August. As always, it felt good to get away from the city. The neighbors who rent the fields were baling straw and the smell of the straw bales was wonderful.

I gave my wife an anniversary spoon – the third since I started carving. I loved this one, and so did she, so it felt good to give it to her. She’s been pretty supportive of my carving, and I love it when she spends time with me in the woodshop. Last October, she took a class at North House Folk School on willow basket making. It’s exciting to watch her explore this new craft. I think that craft is an important element in a relationship. Love is something that requires skillfullness, humility, and the fire to persist despite whatever life throws your way. Love ain’t easy, but it’s damn sure worth it.

So deep into carving, I didn’t realize it had become dark around me. Summer nights.

I had a bit of good fortune in early May, so I bought a Kalthoff axe as a treat to myself and I love it! It’s lighter than my Gransfors, and my sore elbow was screaming for a break. It’s pretty amazing for hewing, and can cut so thin that you’re only left with one side of a shaving.

My son and I have been doing a lot of stop motion animation, so I made a photo copy stand from a free pallet in about 30 minutes. I saved myself $150! Plus I think it will work well for spoon photos too.

Birch butter spreader.

July | September

I interviewed Aaron Margolis and Deirdre McGrath.

I’ve been watching a lot of Roy Underhill’s The Woodwright’s Shop, so I picked up his book Khrushchev’s Shoe and found this quote by David Campbell, “If you were placed on trial for being creative, what evidence of your guilt would the prosecution find?”

I like to think that my spoons, photos, and words would be some bit of evidence, but I know that there’s so much more inside me. The trouble is always the self-discipline to do the work. Being creative means putting your ass in the chair to write the words or pick up the draw knife to make a spoon and some shavings. It’s getting out in the best light to capture the photo. Not listening to siren’s call of a movie or checking social media every hour. That’s why I’m still pretty innocent when it comes to being found guilty for being creative.

The days after the Fourth of July bring elder flowers, so I made some champagne from them… hopefully!

I infused a few quart jars of sour cherries in vodka.It was a bumper crop this year!

I love cooking spoons.Here’s birch cooker and lovage.

Little spoons are my favorites right after the ever functional and humble cooking spoon.

I picked lots of black currants over the past week at Rush River Produce. It’s once of my favorite summer rituals, and I’m glad that we could still do it safely during the pandemic. I infused some in vodka and gin – my winter tonic – and used the rest for jam.

Late in the month, I was carving outside one night under a beautifully greenish orange tornadic sky. Thank goodness I had a glass of Modist Brewing New England Ale. A hazy brew for a hazy humid day!

Carving was good this month. I managed to get out almost every night after my son went to bed. The days were long, and the light was good. I had lots of lillac and walnut waiting to find their new form .

June | August

I interviewed with Jeff Orgon this month.

We went to the farm early in the month. I was grateful to be in a quiet and safe place far from the city (and internet).

I mailed a small check to North House Folk School. I’ve always appreciated what the good people who work and teach there do, but in reading their annual report, I was awe-struck by how they created a hands-on craft kit for every family in Cook County, MN, and Grand Portage as a way to serve local youth during the pandemic. I knew that they were community-focused, but this really demonstrated that idea as real action for me. My check is small because we all in our own way might be worrying about finances and future economies, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned in spoon carving, it’s that every little bit counts. I hope you can help support North House Folk School or your local craft and folk art school. Why? I think that the following quote by Harley Refsal is another good reason:

“I love that craft is such a great leveler. I see this especially in the younger people I work with. Folks who’ve heard over the years that they’re not good students, and then you set them down with a blank and a knife and it just clicks for them. You can see their confidence growing over the course of the class. At the same time, I’ll see people who have always been at the top of any class they’ve taken pick up a knife and find out that they’re all thumbs. They aren’t always having the most fun, but they’re learning important skills too. At the end they have much more empathy and patience than when they’d started.”

Finished a pear spoon that was inspired by a spoon that I bought from Maximilian Neukäufler.

This is my favorite time of summer when the days are long and the temperature is just right. Hope you all are well.

I redesigned my website. Please give it a look over and let me know what’s missing that you would like to see there.

I had four wonderful interviews this month with Rune Randall , Sam Okerlund, Mateo Bonavita, and Stephen Lewis.

I cobbled together a new bookshelf. A librarian can never have too many bookshelves, just like woodworker can never have too many clamps, right? Or perhaps, as Roger Deakin once wrote, “Books are like seeds: they come to life when you read them, and grow spines and leaves. I need trees around me as I need books around me, so building bookshelves is something like planting trees.”

It was an enjoyable project. I made it from scraps leftover from the bed I made for my son this past winter. Sheltering in place added to the challenge because I had to make do with what I had at home or borrow from neighbors. No fancy joinery though – just screws and dowel plugs to make it look pretty. I guessed with the design along the way – not recommended! But I lucked out and have a sturdy bookcase that matches the design of my son’s bed. Another gift that he can take with him someday, along with all the books that I plan to add to these shelves.

Making dandelion wine. It’s not my favorite country wine, but it’s an annual process that I enjoy. Finding a good patch and picking the flowers. Making the wine with the kitchen windows open and the warm/cool breeze blowing in. Looking at the trees budding and the garden plants punching their way towards the blues skies.
And, of course, drinking it much later and remembering this spring day when like these flowers, I was soaking in that spring sun and grateful for its warmth. Dandelion wine is bittersweet. A little like life.

Getting a little wabi-sabi with a wagatabon. This is not the correct method to make one, but I wanted to play. Carving a dried hickory board.

Recently, I traded some spoons for cups from Walter Reese. I just got two cups in the mail from him and love them. Perfect for summer bourbon sippin’. In addition to carving beautiful cups, he works the front line and helps his community as an ER RN. Thanks again, Walter!

Lilac has recently become one of my favorite woods to carve. The smell of it is so intoxicating – the scent reminds me of an exotic spice from a far-off unknown place, and while strong, it’s not overwhelming. I like it.
I got this wood from a neighbor. He was pruning his lilac, and I asked if he had any bigger branches. He gave me a gnarly old dried out one. I was hesitant to take it. But I did because I was curious. I soaked it in a bucket of water out in the garden for a week to see if that might revive it a bit. It did! And it’s been a joy to carve. Just goes to show that you never know what might lie under the surface of things.

Just brewed my first batch of burdock and dandelion root beer. It tastes good too!

April | June

This month I interviewed Mikey Elefant and Toney Randazzo.

My morning tea… the cup was made by Jennifer Darner Wolfe, the teapot by Warren Mackenzie, and the spoons by the man with the camera.

Recently I read How to Think Like a Roman Emperor by Donald Robertson. It’s part biography of Marcus Aurelius, part philosophical exploration of Stoicism, and part self-help guide about cognitive behavioral therapy. In short, I found the book to be so helpful during this time that I also bought the audiobook, so I could listen while I carve. Both are comforting. One of the tenets of Stoicism is to put your energy and thoughts into what you can actually control and not into what you can’t. A good strategy not only in today’s world. The last chapter, in particular, walks the reader through the death of Marcus Aurelius, who died during a plague that was ravaging the Roman Empire at the time. It’s a poignant reminder of memento mori. I found Stoicism through Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle is the Way. It was the summer that my old man died after a long decline from dementia. The book and Stoicism carried me through those days and even darker ones later. I returned to reading about Stoicism at the start of this year, never thinking about how important it would be for me now.

If you’re confused and crushed by the current state of the world, consider reading (or listening to) a book about Stoicism. Maybe the ones I mentioned above or these: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, Seneca. The Good Life by William Irvine, or The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday.

Working on a Japanese influenced spoon out of birch from the North Shore.

Sunrise on my spoon mule. I’m trying to follow my old man’s advice and take life one day at a time.

I published my first email newsletter for this website. It’s nothing fancy, but it had been on my to-do list for about two years. I’m planning to publish it quarterly, maybe monthly, if it goes well. Regardless, I promise I won’t fill your email inbox with nonsense. Please sign up if you’d like to receive it.

Been carving a lot in ash and love it! Used to think it was stringy, but this batch has been crisp – if there is such a term for carving woods. Knives were made by Luke Jepson, and the spoon is based on a design I pulled from drawings that I bought from Emmet Van Driesche.

While going through the letters of a long-departed dear friend, I found this photo of myself in the metalsmithing studio when I was an undergrad art student three decades ago. Early into that semester, my friend had died unexpectedly in a climbing accident. He had been my best friend throughout high school, and without him in my life during that time, I would have become a very different person. He made the world bigger, so when he died, the world collapsed into just that small sphere of a metalsmithing studio. I drank like Bukowski, smoked unfiltered Pall Malls, stopped going to all my classes except for jewelry making and blacksmithing classes. Nothing else mattered! The forge heat dried away my tears. Hand cranking the blower to feed the ever-hungry flames of a coke fire, I felt my fury burn, and then I hammered away at it until my grief was cold and hard. Still and silent.

Yet it was also during this time that I saw how making something could bring joy, and more importantly, meaning to life. Death may have taken something from me, but I could use my days to create. To make something beautiful, functional, or even both. It became addictive, and I spent every waking hour in the studio, so much that the university eventually kicked me out the following year because I failed all my other classes since I never went to them. I got A’s in all my metal classes, though, damn it.

However, during that immersion into metalwork, I found craft and the gift it gave to persevere and keep trying to push forward. In sketching my designs, I began to observe life and nature and see more beauty than ugliness. I connected with my classmates and learned about honesty through our critiques and inspiration through their work. Craft saved me at what had then been the worst point in my life. I know that there will undoubtedly be more bad times, but I’m grateful to have craft back in my life. To keep me afloat. To bring me joy. To connect. To inspire and be inspired. To be humbled. To continue to learn because that never ends. To know that part of me will always be there even when I’m gone.

As I was digging through letters from a friend who has since passed away. It was good to hear his voice again through his words. In the letters, I found this poem by Countee Cullen:

Any Human To Another

The ills I sorrow at
Not me alone
Like an arrow
Pierce to the marrow,
Through the fat
And past the bone.
Your grief and mine
Must intertwine
Like sea and river
Be fused and mingle
Diverse yet single
Forever and forever.
Let no man be so proud
And confident,
To think he is allowed
A little tent
Pitched in a meadow
Of sun and shadow
All his own.
Joy may be shy, unique,
Friendly to a few,
Sorrow never scorned
to speak
To any who
Were false or true.
Your every grief
Like a blade
Shining and unsheathed
Must strike me down.
Of bitter aloes wreathed,
My sorrow must be laid
On your head like a crown.

I was going to share the poem because April is National Poetry Month. Also, it speaks so profoundly about grief and loss.

I woke up and learned that John Prine had died due to complications from COVID. I loved his music and frequently listened to it while I carved in the woodshop. My favorite memory from Wood Week at North House Folk School last year was carving in the shop at night with many folks. Off in a corner, Liesl Chatman and Marco Good played guitars and sang. I loved the moment and song so much! Later, Liesl told me that the song was Hello in There by John Prine. It’s a beautiful one. Give it a listen at some point today, and after think of someone you know who is older and perhaps alone and isolated from the world right now, and give them a call just to say hello.

I say it a lot, but I mean it every time, stay safe and well, friends. Keep carving.

March | May

I had a great interview with Ed Mallam.

Started a new wagatabon from Iowa heartnut (butternut?). Trying to avoid to splitting it.

Later in month, the world changed, and I have no idea where all of this uncertainty will lead us. Be calm. Be together(despite the distance). Be well!

However, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that carving a spoon creates some calm. Even momentarily.

February | April