The Craftsmanship Of Risk... Or So It's Been Called

I first heard Peter Follansbee refer to spoon carving as the "craftsmanship of risk" (explaining the perils of spoon carving) on Roy Underhill's show. Not a truer statement has there ever been. For all the beautiful spoons that the multitude of wonderful carvers produce that you see at the craft shows, local markets, or here on the web - you don't usually see what's in the photo above. To the spoon carver or green woodworker it is all too familiar; that perfect looking log that you can clearly see the spoon in and can't wait to unlock it, only to split the log open and find some hidden knot from an off shot branch long ago in the tree's youth; possibly some rotten wood, maybe damage from some monstrous insect, or any other malformation that the tree has kept hidden under it's thick and rough exterior. As spoonmakers and green woodworkers we try and learn and study each tree, log, or crooked branch. Many times it can be apparent on the bark where a knot may be, but no matter how you may try to read it, or how you can try to convince yourself that it is going to work, the wood inside will twist and shape itself no matter how hard we try to manipulate it. As is the beauty of our craft, the natural medium we work with has its own idea what we will make from it and our goal is to find harmony with what it has to offer.

a butternut log with nice shape for a bent serving spoon but too much funkiness
and a crack that went all the way through..so to the firewood pile

Then sometimes you get all the way to this stage and carve the whole spoon and then notice a small
crack and try to salvage, work around it, and then go to far...this great apple crook just didn't want to be a serving
ladle.  

 

 

So anyway, the last of the new batch were oiled last night. Once those dry and I'm able to get some shots of the batch I'll get them up here on the blog. Unfortunately, the batch isn't as big as I'd hoped due to more than the usual assortment of the aforementioned challenges (and one spoon eating yellow lab who was able to break in and ravage the spoon shop!) But, I hope to have them posted by the end of the week so keep your eye out.