redwood snail

I was given a piece of redwood by my friend Joseph while visiting my sister in Humboldt a couple years ago. From the same piece of wood I made a spoon for Joseph and for Infinite Link (pictures forthcoming).

I sent out a notice on Facebook at that time to see if anyone would like me to make them a spoon. I got two responses, and one of them was from my old friend Nuria. She was moving to a new house and needed a new tea scooping spoon. When I asked her whether she had any particular ideas for a spoon design she mentioned some woods, but otherwise left it completely up to me. I felt it out and landed on using this piece of redwood that had a big, unusual knob on one end. For some reason I had cut the blank this way... I saw a snail in it and began the rough shaping.

It is ironic how this project stalled for so long, finally being completed more than a year and a half after starting. It was my slowest process ever. Sometimes I am just waiting for the right energy or inspiration that will push me through the challenging hurdle in the design. The shell was confounding me, but then while I was staying with this community in Raymond recently I found the right peaceful, supportive atmosphere in which to approach it. It was like a floodgate opening!

When my father saw this spoon finished it might be my masterpiece. I give all the credit to the brilliant one who created me and fills me with life and the power to create. I am amazed!

Camp Spatula

I had been wanting to make a spatula for a while. My friend Nathan had recently finished one that was pretty styling and I wanted to see what would come through my hands. So when this woman Anna I met at the Orcas ferry landing asked me to make her a camp spatula I knew it was destiny! Soon after putting the wish out there to find the perfect piece of wood for it, my mother brought along a huge trunk of Lilac she had gotten from a job recently. At the base it was just wide enough for this small spatula! Perfect!

The blank was roughed out with a hatchet at my teacher Walter Henderson's community wood shop. I have been practicing roughing out blanks with a hatchet more lately. I want to get a good hewing hatchet of my own, but any sharp hatchet or ax will do in a pinch. The shop has a couple really nice ones. In roughing out the handle end I saw the face of an animal and tried to bring out the spirit of a fox there. Nobody I asked saw a fox, but someone saw the doglike nose as I had. I suppose it could be whatever you see it as. I have been wanting to try carving a spoon handle in the design of the canoes used by people in the Salish Sea.

The design of this handle is largely inspired by this shape, and also just came along through happenstance.

This was a great pleasure to carve! I want to make more spatula!

pitch wood fir

When I was at Walter Henderson's community wood shop the other day I found a piece of firewood that was full of pitch. I felt like making it into a spoon, and this is what came through. I almost completed it in that first day. Lots of fun! I gave it to Maggie Clogston to help with her kitchen magic.

grandparent plum

When I was in Humboldt helping my sister at her farm in the Spring I had the pleasure of meeting her husband's grandparents and doing some garden work for them. One task I performed was to prune off a large branch from an old plum tree at the entrance of the garden. It seemed to have some good colors inside and I thought maybe I could get some good spoons out of it. I asked if I could take a piece, and said I would make them a spoon from it. Many months later I completed this sturdy beauty.

alder dough-stiring spoon

I spent a few days with my friends the Parypa family and made them this spoon of local alder.

While visiting them I taught them to make a sour dough bread in the style I know. It involves a lot of stirring and there was no wooden spoon to do it with. I have made spoons for a couple of the children previously, and this felt like an opportunity to honor the whole family by making a tool that would benefit them all. It also felt like a gesture of respect to the mother, who works so hard in the kitchen and deserves beautiful, well-made tools.

I got excited about showing the children the process of making a spoon from beginning to end all in one visit. We went out on a walk and cut down a small alder tree together that was in a thick stand growing next to the road. The rough shaping was done with a hatchet.

Spruce Root

When I was up in the Eastern Cascades with a group of friends back in August I received some special pieces of wood to make spoons out of. One of these is a piece of alpine spruce root. When I carved into it the first time I was amazed to find many colors. Pink, green, and blue were mixed in with the light brown of this strong-smelling, pitchy root. As I continued to shape a spoon, I discovered that this root contained a whole rainbow of colors. They fade with time, and are hard to capture in photos, but you can imagine. What a pleasure to carve such beautiful wood!

It seems appropriate that this rainbow faceted root would be the spoon of the deep and magically dynamic song leader Laurence Cole. The bowl of this spoon is also very sturdy and deep, partly because I chose to leave a bit of the bark on the back side of the bowl. Another aspect of the spoon that seems fitting for Laurence is that rather than design the spoon in a symmetrical, measured way, I went with the flow of the contortions of the root fibers. hollows seemed to naturally form where a hand might hold it comfortably.

Hawk Head

This spoon is made from a piece of wood I got in Humoldt while visiting my sister at the end of this past winter. I think it is apple wood. When I shaped the blank with a band saw I left this big knob on the back of the bowl that I normally would have carved off. This time I considered what might be done with it...
Around the time I was considering this piece of wood I met someone who had a connection to hawks. Carly looks birdlike to me and has a keen way of being in life. So I decided I would try to carve a hawk's head out of that knob, and I would give this spoon to my new friend Carly.