Little Red-flowering Currant

This is my first time carving this common native species. It was cut from a very vigorous plant next to a lawn we replaced on a landscaping job I was part of while down in Portland. Such jobs are great for finding spoon wood! This fine grained wood has a light speckling but is fairly plain otherwise. A humble shrub with beautiful flowers. Red-flowering currant.

apple eye

This spoon is made for my good man friend Andre Enterman of Lopez Island. It is made from apple wood pruned from a tree in the orchard where he lives, Sunnyfield Farm. Much of the meticulous carving of the ball in the handle was done in the car during a couple week period in September when I was starting this new chapter of my life that led to Portland, OR. I see it either as the eye ball held in the socket or a smooth beach rock held between the tail of a fish. I am very grateful for the gift of a straight knife from my teacher Walter Henderson's workshop on Orcas Island! I could not have carved this handle detail without it!

another yew

This tiny yew spoon was given to Makena Henricksen of Lopez Island some years back. She just finally got me some pictures of it. It was part of this series of small yew spoons from the same beautiful piece of wood I got from my friend Renee. She had used it for pounding things and it was starting to splinter, making perfect little pieces for small spoons! Love those dark and light rings.

crab apple

I finished this crab apple spoon for my friend Elizabeth of Sunnyfield Farm late this July of 2016. Once again the detail on the handle came as a surprise due to a knot in the wood I decided to cut out. It was kind of risky, and at first i thought I'd ruined the spoon, but i went with it and look what happened! My favorite part of the spoon is the tip of the handle, which has a slight rounding on the underside to meet up with the slope that comes down from the tip of the diamond. Subtle details... yum.

redwood

while visiting at his place in the Lost Coast area of Northern California Jpseph let me use his band saw one day. he gave me a piece of rough milled redwood. he told me it was from the branch. the rings are close together, which makes for better carving and a stronger spoon. i worked around the knots and cracks in the wood and got a few good blanks out of it.

this one is the first i have finished of these blanks and it seems appropriate that it go as a gift to the one who gave me the wood. it has a subtle influence from Northwest Native formline art. it also has some characteristics of Joseph himself; being short and wide, having a large bowl that suggests generosity, with it's age and type of wood speaking of wisdom and strength, and gracefully curving lines having a humble beauty. the triangle at the end of the handle connects with Joseph's love for carpentry.

pepper serpent

i got the wood for this one in the wood shed of my friends Joseph and Jani. it was Joseph's suggestion that i might find something of interest in the cord wood there. after feeling around in there for a bit i pulled off this shard of pepper wood that had a dark surface on one side that may have come from a part of the tree that was damaged and coated with pitch. or it was just dead there and beginning to rot. i decided to work that into the spoon by leaving a circle of it on the bottom of the bowl.

i had hardly gotten started with this spoon when, soon after returning to Lopez Island i met a fellow traveler at one of my favorite weekly potlucks. Kat is the friend of Nikyta, aho i gave one of my tiny rose spoons years ago. after i had connected with Kat in conversation and the evening was coming to an end Nikyta told me, "i was going to tell her about your spoons because she loves wooden spoons!" the spirit was moving me to make a spoon for her, and somehow this piece of pepper wood seemed like it was meant for her. the next day i worked on this spoon and was amazed at how it became a serpent! there was just enough thickness and width to make the curves and the spiral tail. i just worked with the shape of the shard to guide the design. nice how the marks of the blade imply scales.

the magic of surprise meetings and soul connection is a lot of what these souper spoons are about for me. i want to encourage people who i sense are also alive in this way, and hope that we all can pass it on and grow through it together. let these spoons be a reminder.

morgen and cora's spoons

when the children see me carving they always say they want me to make them a spoon. 'is that one for ME?' i don't always know who it is going to be for... but i promised i would make spoons for my brother's three children. here are the ones i made for morgen and cora. robin's has gone missing.

 

 

heart and leaf spoon

here is a spoon i made a few years ago for my step mother. it is made from a very old ocean spray trunk. such beautiful, strong wood! i think it is my favorite to carve. the hardness of the wood allows me to do finer detail and thinner body of the spoon. looking back at this i am amazed at what i was able to do with the leaf and heart stem of the spoon! the heart and leaf represent the love that gives new life. it is about five inches long.
UPDATE: after sitting for the past few years on display in the front hallway of the house where i was born, my parents took my suggestion and passed it on to cynthia's mother, who is going through some hard times. i am so happy when the beauty of these carvings can bring a little awe and joy to more people!

fig in thorn junction

when i was visiting some friends in thorn junction and working in their garden i found a piece of fig wood that just cried out to be made into a spoon. sometimes i just see the potential. this section of branch was in a compost bin where i was happily placing all the grass i pulled.
it had lots of rings, but i was told it was only a few years old. later i found out it had grown so many rings because it was in their greenhouse! the wood was soft, but stronger than i expected. i carved it in one sitting on a sunny morning. very rare for me to carve a spoon all at once like this! the sanding was done mostly during a song circle i attended that night with my host Jani. got all filled with good vibrations! i decided to give the spoon to the lovely couple who's tree the wood had come from. it is now honored to be used in their love-filled kitchen!

avocado season

this is actually the second avocado spoon i have carved, but the first one i was not able to get a picture of. it is a softer wood with a beautiful texture to the grain. i enjoy carving it dry. this piece i found laying around the trailer where i was living for about a month this spring. someone who came to help out for a week on the farm liked the olive spoon i had recently finished and asked if she could commission one for her parents. YES! when people get excited about these spoons i respond. the shape of the handle came about largely due to the irregular way it was broken and cracked. it was more of a shard, not the half-branch section i often work from. the paddle on the end was at first going to be some kind of spiral, like a curling leaf, but i decided to leave the inside of the curve intact for strength. it turned out it gives a wonderful eyeful of the grain on the flat surface and evokes the fruit of the tree it was made from, which i emphasized intentionally. i think it is elegant in kind of a sturdy way. thanks Liz for your encouragement!

sister's spoon

visiting my sister at her home on the lost coast i was able to finally get a picture of the tiny spoon i made for her years ago. she uses it as a salt spoon just about every day. what a special thing to be present that way in her life through something i made. this spoon is from the same piece of yew wood that i carved all those other ones out of. what a beautiful wood! thank you tree for living and giving your life! thanks to the Creator for making it all possible.

spalted olive

While staying with the Twelve Tribes community at Morning Star Ranch i carved a few more spoons. I was not able to get pictures of all of them. Here is the most recent one i finished as a gift for my new frind and 'brother to be' Charutz. It is made from one of the pieces of olive wood i got at Spreadwing Farm in the Capay Valley of Northern CA. I chose it for the spalting and boy did it prove beautiful! It is a hefty and dignified spoon for a strong and wise man.