Spoonsmith | Publisher
Spoonsmith
Phone: +61 417 882 074
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23.01.2022 Felt like the first drop of rain after a long dry! My first spoon workshop for a long while held in Canberra last weekend. It was really lovely to be back at the ACT Woodcraft Guild to meet new spoonies and catch up with some old ones too. Friday night was a blast too, I gave a presentation on carving and spoons and puppets and trees v wood and some other things where I rambled off in random directions. No one fell asleep which is always a good sign! Big thanks to the Guild and everyone who came along, and really big thanks to Nat for organising the whole thing. Can’t wait to return!
22.01.2022 A young long-beaked echidna, just standing on her egg, waiting for her beak to grow. - I’ll take some more pics of her first meet with the rest of the echidna gang and post them on the @wethemammalians page. I’ve heard they’re pretty excited to meet her! - New year, new day. It felt good sitting in the afternoon light finishing off this little girl. Wishing you all a super fun 21!
22.01.2022 In the absence of sword belts, ogres tend to store their blades somewhere they won’t lose them. - Fiddling with firewood when camping with the gang and channeling my inner @danhero who makes the best whittled weirdos in the spooniverse!
19.01.2022 So Spoonsmith is no more. I’ve wrapped it up and headed down a different path through the trees. Can’t say entirely where it’ll take me, but I’m dead happy where I’m standing now. It feels like a good path to take. This new chapter is called Under the Bloodwood Tree, and I’ve just hit the go button on my new website of the same name. I’m pretty proud of it, not so much because of the long haul of pixel carving that has sucked up a lot of my time, but instead it’s because I’m ...actually telling my whole story for once. Yep, I’m a carver and teacher, but I’m also a writer. A storyteller in words and wood. So I’ve combined the two in one unique little corner of that internet thing. Lurking on those pages are my wood stories in spoons, kitchenalia and puppets, and my eerie, spooky and oddball word stories. And meeting somewhere in the middle is something I’m really excited about: The Library of Modern Slöjd, a new imprint of books I’m writing that share 23 years of carving and teaching. I’d love it if you went for a wander Under the Bloodwood Tree. It’s different for sure, but a good different I hope! The link is www.underthebloodwoodtree.com if you feel like poking around. Hope you like it See more
15.01.2022 Spoon friends and dumpling friends. I’ve been a bit quiet with the knife just lately, but just easing my way back into some happy mess making with this dumpling spatula a friend asked me to make (who is paying me in grateful gyoza...yum!). Nudging me back into the making headspace are gifts from two dear buddies. This beautiful knife from @von_trott is something we’ve talked about a bit...it has different bevel angles on each side, which allows for aggressive or gentle cuts d...epending which side or technique you use. I’ve really enjoyed testing this little beauty and it reminds me a lot of carving with a single bevel kiridashi knife. If you’ve not used one of Pete’s knives or hooks yet, you should, they work really well and they’re dang pretty too! And the other lovely gift came from @paulboyer65 (scroll through to the last pic). Paul has been steadily plugging away at carving since coming to the second Spoon Jam as our first aider. Many hours have been whittled away in his spoon shed and in my opinion he is now making some of the best spoons out there. Whether spoon friends or dumpling friends, knowing these people makes me happy. Which is why that little gyoza finial on the spatula has a big smile on its face See more
12.01.2022 Change. This year has brought on changes in direction for many folks. In these parts we’ve had a year of back-to-back bushfires rolling seamlessly into the ongoing shit storm of COVID-19. Crafts people from all over have had their livelihoods crumble from under their feet as markets, fairs and teaching gigs disappear into the ether. That’s been our story too, starting with change rearing it’s head as the fires roared through in January. Our house made it through, but as a woo...dworker my materials did not. I still have trouble getting my head around the fact that in those few months, an area of forest and grassland larger than England burned in Australia. That’s a lot of trees, a lot of vital habitat, a lot of food and shelter for animals, gone. And so for a while I was a woodworker not wanting to source any wood. With governments literally airdropping tonnes of carrots into the bush for starving animals, I could not justify taking another tree. I found bits here and there, got woody donations from friends and tackled some weeds, but for a while there I was in a mire, not sure where to go. And then that virus thing happened, and that was that. But craft folks are, well, crafty, and as a woodworker who shares the design and making process with the demands and whims of trees, I’m used to things not going entirely my way. So I sat down, took stock, and cut myself a new path, deep into the woods. I’ll let you know soon where that path has taken me, but for now, here’s a cup, carved from the perfect piece of wood, from a bloodwood tree. This tree had already been chopped down, and the meagre stump was still green, so I took it. It was full of sap pockets, knots and borer holes, but it was just right for what I wanted: my dedication to all the trees that burned. May we all grow strong and recover, and cut new paths to better places, wherever they may be See more
03.01.2022 Well all three species of spiny waddling things met and seem like they’re all besties already. Pop over to @wethemammalians on Instagram to see the big egg-laying mammal knees up! - #itsnotabird #itsnotareptile #itsnotafish... #butitlayseggs #echidna #weird #wonderful See more
02.01.2022 As we tippy-toe our way to Christmas and a shiny new year, let’s just go with a little bit of hope that all us peas in this big round pod have a lot more to smile about someday soon. Wishing you all a safe and happy Christmas, and big love to all who have supported and been here to join us in our meandering path through the trees
02.01.2022 Thanks everyone for your amazing encouragement and support of my new adventure. One thing I should have mentioned is that while Spoonsmith is no more, Spoon Jam is still very much with us! Our plan is to continue running these amazing events, but as with everything at the moment, we’re just unsure when the next one will be held. We did mention March 2021 a while back, but it seems pretty unlikely the world will return to normal by then, so let’s aim hopefully for sometime tow...ards the end of 2021. Time will tell. And it was a year ago and a week since this lovely photo was taken at Spoon Jam 2019. It was such a surprise to see Matt Ross turn up with his Deardorff 5x7 complete with wooden tripod, bellows and a black blanket to drape over his head. I love this photo, and it hangs watching over the stories I write in my jumbled office of books and knives and half-cooked carvings and shavings. Thank you so much to Annette and Matt for sending us this lovely framed photo, and of course thank you a gazillion to everyone in this photo. Spoon Jam will be back! #spoonjam See more
