Information and Inspiration for Spoon Carvers
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.
This month, I interviewed Tamara Kusters, Anthony DiPietro, Aaron Garrett, and Sean Hearn.
I carved a Japanese style birch spoon inspired by a spoon that I bought from Jarrod Dahl. Buy one of his, they’re beautiful!
I carved two applewood spoons made from a winter storm broken branch off a honey crisp tree.
Birch cooker, roasted to a lovely pinkish-red hue.
Wood Week at North House Folk School is less than a month away. I’m sad that I can’t attend this year. Not so much because I’ll miss the rare opportunity to learn from some fantastic teachers, but more so from the missed moments to connect with the folks who attend. Last year, I met so many good people. Some were fellow carvers who I felt like I knew via Instagram. Still, nothing beats a conversation over carving in person. That’s when you can really say you know or are friends with someone. Others that I met there were new names and faces.
Two new people I met were Luke Jepson and his father. I enjoyed my conversations with both. Luke is a talented woodworker, blacksmith, toolmaker, spoon carver (the spoon in the photos is one he carved from elm), and arborist.
Recently, I bought three carving knives from Luke to use with the two I had previously bought from him. They are amazing knives! I believe he might have a few more for sale. If you want a beautiful workhorse of a knife, give him a shout.
Works in progress…
Red oak spoon
Two birch spoons
Birch spreader
I’ve had the good fortune to be able to take a couple of classes at the American Swedish Institute recently. I’m in Paul Linden’s spoon carving class. I really enjoy the format where we meet once a week for 10 weeks. It allows me to put what we’re taught into practice. Also, Paul, along with the help of Josh Torkelson and Liesl Chapman, has taught me some helpful new ways to approach carving.
At the end of the month, I took a three-day shaving horse class at ASI with Rose Holdorf and Josh. I’ve been wanting a shaving horse for awhile. I love the spoon mule I built last year, but get frustrated at times by the limitations of the mule jaws. I bought plans to make a shaving horse, but they were just collecting dust, so I jumped at the opportunity to take this class. At the end of the course, I left with a shaving horse. It wasn’t an easy project, but Rose and Josh were well organized, prepared, and infinitely patient in their teaching.
I love books and all they offer, but it’s hard to beat a class with a great teacher. There are so many basic things in woodworking that I don’t know, so I find it very helpful to watch someone or ask a question until something clicks, and I finally understand it. Also, my classmates were a great crew. They reminded me of the community building that can happen during classes like this too.
Speaking of books, here’s what I read this month:
Spon by Barn the Spoon
Woodland Year by Ben Law
The Woodland Way by Ben Law
Roundwood Timber Framing by Ben Law
I really enjoy Ben’s many books about green woodworking, timber framing, permaculture, and living off the land. You can also find a short documentary on YouTube about how he built his roundwood timber-framed house. Inspiring stuff!
In early January, I had the good fortune to find a beautiful book – Sing a Song of Seasons: A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year. It was an expensive book, but as I read its introduction by Kate Wilson from Nosy Crow, it was her memory of getting a similar anthology of poetry for her seventh birthday that cinched the deal for me because I was looking for a book for my son’s seventh birthday.
In today’s world, there can never be enough nature poetry read! As greed erodes the world, words are what will preserve it and arouse action to make change a reality. My hope is that poetry is the observation and spell all wrapped up in one.
Every day we read a poem together as a family, but this month I indulged myself and read this book a bit more deeply just for my own pleasure and comfort. When the world turns dark, there is always a book that brings back a bit of the light, and this is one of them. This is the perfect book for those who we most care about – the next generation who will have to weather the shitstorm we made for them!
I’m also reading a beautiful book by Peter Forbes and Helen Whybrow – A Man Apart – that honors the life of Bill Coperthwaite. I’m reading it to prepare for an interview that I hope to share, but also for inspiration as I transition to my own version of a handmade life.
Winter Morning Walks by Ted Kooser
Patience by Akiko Busch. A few quotes from it:
“Nature gives us a sense of measure – though, at the same time, it may be what the writer Sherwood Anderson called ‘a bigness outside of ourselves.'”
“Much continues to happen while we are doing nothing, and there is a reassurance to be found in the industry of small things. Life goes on without us. It was Franz Kafka who said, ‘You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”
Play – engaging the imagination- in all forms, can be a way of focusing attention on the present moment. (Perhaps this is why spoon carving is so meaningful to me).
“Patience is always just as active as it is passive and just as passive as it is active.” – Kierkegaard.
Ancient Skies Ancient Trees by Beth Moon
The Way Home by Mark Boyle
A Handmade Life: In Search of Simplicity by William Coperthwaite.
I had some great interviews with Tim Morris, Mattias Höög, Johns_Slojd, and Ben Gancsos.
The start of the new year has been productive. I carved four spoons from applewood, finished a bed frame for my son, and got back into carving wagatabon.
I love wagatabon! I had the good fortune to study last March with Shinichi Moriguchi and Masashi Kutsuwa at the North House Folk School. It was a fantastic experience! I made a couple of wagatabon, but then the year got busy with other things. On Thanksgiving, my brother-in-law and I took down a massive red oak branch that fell in an autumn storm days before, so I had a lot of new wood to work with.
Traditionally, wagatabon were carved from chestnut, but I was curious about using red oak. It was great to work with!
One of the things that I love about wagatabon is the minimalism and simplicity in making them. A gouge, chisel, and mallet. A simple bench to work on. The meditative technique that creates that exhilarating yet calm feeling of flow through repetition. It’s a joyful process that clears your mind.
While this wagatabon is a bit rough, I like it. It made me realize that as much as I love spoon carving, there will be a day when my poor eyesight might limit what I can do. But this is an option to keep chasing the grain and the wood chips flying.
I carved a skinny applewood cooker spoon, roasted birch spoon, three spreaders (roasted birch and butternut), and three roasted birch cookers.
Last Spring, I ventured by myself to the local lumberyard. I decided to make my son a proper bed. I sketched out a quick design based on my bed and took some measurements and recalculated them to go from a queen size to a full. Like most of my ideas, it was fueled by a combination of impulse and confidence that I’d figure out a way to build it even though I never had made, or designed, a single piece of furniture. Well, not counting a spoon mule because I’m not quite sure if that falls on the furniture or tool side of the fence. Anyway, I went in search of birch or maple and came back with poplar. It was a practical economic decision – birch and maple were expensive, and that wasn’t even factoring the cost of my likely mistakes between measuring and then using the table saw. Besides, I embraced poplar after I found out that it was just another name for the aspen tree, and my son and I have good memories with aspen trees.
So I planed and sawed, and jointed and sawed some more. I worked out of a local woodshop with thoughtful old guys who never minded stopping what they were doing to answer my silly questions. A rhythm developed week after week at the shop, and as I cut the lumber to length, I started to feel that I actually might build that bed.
Summer came and went. The cut wood lived under my couch for months until this Fall when a good friend helped me with the joinery and assembling it. He is a woodworker that lives on precision but apparently also patience after he saw my design. Every Friday, I laughed my ass off as we worked because his sense of humor equals his kindness. But we did it, and just before Christmas, the bed was built. I finished it for my son’s birthday.
I built it extra strong, so it could withstand the thousands of jumps that a child must do to break in their new bed, but also for the inevitable journeys that I hope that he and the bed take in the years ahead. Time passes too quickly. Someday, he and his bed will leave home. Perhaps to college, then to other cities, apartment after apartment then finally to a home that he will call his own, where I hope, his child will sleep in it and dream sweet dreams too.
I finished a wooden cup from birch. Embellished it with minor chisel work to mimic the memory of summer prairie grass. I hope to season it with a bit of bourbon every now and then to create a proper patina.
I also roasted the red oak wagatabon. You could say I charred it. My wife commented that it looks like it survived a house fire. It was an experiment. I roasted it for about an hour at 450 degrees. Way too hot. Way too long. Live and learn.
What I read this month:
As the new year begins, I’m focusing my reading on a few of my favorite things: spoon carving, stoicism, and writing.
Massimo Pigliucci has a wonderful new book, A Handbook for New Stoics, that provides a weekly perspective on the philosophy and how to implement in your life. For me, this is an excellent follow-up to The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday, which I read last year.
I’m re-reading The Art of Whittling by Niklas Karlson, which is one of my favorites about carving. I think that this line gives a good feel for the whole book, “It felt as if we had made a pact, the wood and I. We had come to understand each other, as I sat beneath that spruce as a child and during those endless days up in the northern landscape where I spent most of my holidays.” If you haven’t read his book yet, get it! It’s rich in both inspiration and instruction.
Also, I’m reading Writing Well by Mark Tredinnick. This book is on my shortlist of favorite books about writing.
Sisu: The Finnish Art of Courage by Joanna Nylund.
The Finnish Way by Katja Pantzar
Studio Life by Sarah Trigg.
Studio Craft as Career by Paul Stankard.
I’ve been curious lately about sisu, and the role of courage can play in life, so The Finnish Way is the second book I’ve recently read on the subject.
The other two books were prompted by a recent Instagram post from Dan Lawrence about creativity. After reading it and sharing a few thoughts myself, I felt an urge to go exploring a bit in the art/craft world to see what other folks think about it. I’m enjoying Stankard’s book, and while it focuses heavily on the world of glass, much of his writing could be applied to spoon carving or any other craft.
Into the Woods: Trees In Photography by Martin Barnes
Drawing Trees and Leaves by Julia Kuo
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
I had some wonderful interviews with Joel Larabell, Daniel Wester, Martin Ryan, Jonah Lindsley, and Sue Ackerman.
Another year older… I spent some time this afternoon in an aspen grove that is a bit of a sacred space to me and pondered the past year. It was a tough one, yet filled with plenty of good too. I appreciate the inspiration and connection that I found from so many the folks who share their work and thoughts with me in person or online. Thank you!
I’ve had many good nights in the woodshop lately and here’s some recent work… Heartnut serving spoon, birch spoon, trio of birch spreaders (center one inspired by a Dawson Moore design), and a tiny willow spoon. All were roasted and then a coat of walnut oil afterward.
Lots of carving to finish in the new year too.
What I read this month:
Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story by Paul Auster
Lone Mountain by John Porcellino
Christmas Remembered by Ben Logan
The Art of Simple Living by Shunmyo Masuno
I had some great interviews with Scott Johnson, Gorazd Richter, Jonathan Jekic, and Joseph Mayhew.
I love fall hikes, especially on the cloudy, cold gray days of November. I walked through Richardson Nature Center and stopped by a gnarled old oak, aka “the bee tree” to see what my friends had been up to this summer.
I’ve been working a lot of cooking spoons. The humble, yet ever-versatile, cooking spoon is by far my favorite to make and use.
Sunday sloyd with a martini in my old man’s cocktail glass and a moment of reflection on the simple beauty of wood grain…
What I read this month:
Restoration Agriculture by Mark Shepard
Abundance of Less by Andy Couturier.
I had some great interviews with Peter Moule, Nick Murphy, Sven Kramer, and Björn Svantesson.
One of the many things I learned at the Driftless Spoon Gathering in September was what I call the “Greg Nelson Test” to check if my spoons are sturdy enough to withstand the tests of time and use. While there, Greg Nelson encouraged me to crank on those spoon cranks to see how strong they really are. I carved this one too thin in the spots that needed to be strong. It’s a useful practice, thanks, Greg!
Early in the month, I spent the whole beautiful day with my family, friends, and lots of bees making cider from apples that we picked at the farm last week.
Wild apples for cider are the best. It was a pretty fantastic harvest this year.
We ended up with 7.5 gallons of cider to ferment. We were inspired by Aaron Burr’s book Uncultivated, so some of these wild apples will ferment from their own wild yeast. As much as I enjoy making beer and wine, my wife and I feel that cidermaking taps into our goal for a more sustainable life. It simply uses fewer resources. We have the good fortune to have access to a lot of wild apple trees. Yeah, we had to bring them home in a car, but maybe that too might change someday, and I’ll have to carry the apple buckets across the field. Time will tell. By the way, just one bee sting too. A small price to pay for a beautiful day.
One of the things that I’ve been lately wondering about is how I use social media. I find connection and inspiration through platforms like Instagram. Still, sometimes I feel like I am just adding posts for the sake of more posts, so I decided to trim back a bit on what I share. I did this for a whole month in December 2018, and my productivity with carving increased. Anyway, I came up with a formula for sharing on Instagram that makes sense to me: interview, my carving, and what I’m reading (I am surrounded by books most of the week). So, I’ll be sharing more of what I read every month here too.
What I read this month:
Mortise and Tenon Magazine, issue 7
Woodland Homestead by Brett McLeod
Backyard Woodland by Josh Vanbrakle
The Nature Instinct by Tristan Gooley
Who Was Ronald Dahl by True Kelley
Shoptalk by Donald Murray
The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler
The Creative Fight by Chris Orwig
Skimming Stones by Rob Cowen
How to Write Short by Roy Peter Clark
