Friday 21 February 2014

The Price of Inspiration

This blog is somewhat self absorbed with mainly things I have made. Below are the spoons that I have bought or been given that I love and I use. The monetary value I have paid for them has been returned many times over in what they have taught me and incorporated into my own designs.

If a picture tells a thousand words, holding a 3D object tells a million. Even photographs of the same spoon could never tell you the exact details or show the final knife cuts like holding an actual object does.

If you carve spoons but balk at the idea of paying for them (especially when you have loads kicking around already), the best advice I can give you is to bloody well do it. If you pay £36.50 for a spoon that is 10 pence a day for inspiration for the first year, after that it's free!

First up, one of Barn Carders, the first spoon I bought. A serving/cooking spoon in Bay. Its one of my very favourites.

barnthespoon.blogspot.co.uk




This is my favourite photo that I have taken, it shows the beautiful fading to the faceting which makes the back of a spoon so fascinating...

Another of Barns in the style that he made his own. Simple yet stylish in Sycamore.




Interestingly the bowl of the spoon is not perfectly symmetrical. A slight offsetting which is only obvious on close study, proof that the human hand is still at work.


Next up is the spoon I bought at the second Spoonfest by Jarrod StoneDahl, an American craftsman with Scandinavian ancestry. He produces the same style of Scandinavian spoon almost exclusively with minor variations and he is very good at it. Birch.

jarrodstonedahl.blogspot.co.uk

woodspiritgallery.com




The last spoon is by Owen Thomas, a friend I made on a chair making course. He gave it to me on my birthday last year. It is carved from Sycamore. The teardrop shape of the bowl and the profile are related in a complicated 3D nightmare created by the Twyca Cam (spoon knife) that he uses to great effect. 

owenthomaswoodcraft.wordpress.com




There you are. Nice spoons.


Sooped-up and Ready For Action...

Tomorrow is the South of England Hedge Laying Association's thirtieth annual competition, this year held near Laughton in East Sussex. Just in time for the competition I have finished renovating my favourite (Kent Pattern) handbill. Aside from a long standing wobble in the handle, it came a cropper on some wire buried within a stem on its last outing. A significant amount of grinding and a new handle turned on the lathe should make a big difference. Let battle commence...



The original handle had a hard life...




Tuesday 4 February 2014

Makers Gallery

Things have been getting out of hand... I can't move around the house with out slipping on piles of butter knives and fallen piles of spoons are blocking fire escapes. It is time to have a clear-out... I have been in touch with the nice people at The Tenterden Gallery - a collection of local artists and craftspeople - and they have been kind enough to offer me a four week slot as a guest maker. Perched amongst the photographs and paintings are my spoons and pegs and on select days I sit in a warm corner and carve whilst chatting with artists and people who pop in. Hopefully the good people of Kent will develop an appetite for wooden spoons.

www.tenterdengallery.co.uk/



The Gallery is a fantastic platform for artists and craftspeople - long may it last.


Setting them out was almost as hard as pricing them...


Its a very strange feeling to have something that you have created on view, for people to scrutinise and maybe even buy... This is the first time I have done anything like this and a massive internal dialogue of conflict goes on in your mind: How much is reasonable to charge? What is a fair cost for my time? What will people feel they are worth? Why worry - people might not like them... Is it pretentious to think they are worth selling? How to I deal with people telling me they would be better a different way?

I suppose it doesn't matter in the end, all experience is good experience. Besides its fun to break out of your comfort zone.