Today, birds and birds. This first one in American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) – is going to get painted on the outside, then carved through the paint.
This tiny one, split out with the guidance of Dave Fisher, is birch – I forget which one. No paint, just carved today. Some spoons getting finished up in preparation for this weekend’s Lie-Nielsen workshop – full this time. More spoon carving classes to be announced through Plymouth CRAFT soon.
Then, some photos plucked off the card. Down river:
Red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus ) I assume juvenile male turning to adult. The female doesn’t usually show the red, I believe.
yellow warbler. (Setophaga petechia) they are quieter now than in the spring, so I just happened to notice this one skulking around.
I pretend I exist in a bubble or cocoon. Each day I’m at home, I get up & have breakfast with the family, and then make my way out the back door to the workshop. Open up the windows to let in the sounds of the birds, check the river – tide in or out? Coming or going? And then sort the day’s projects – am I cutting these mortises, carving which pieces – most of my concerns are about really great quality oak, sharp tools, and learning from studies of period pieces…
And it goes like that day in & day out. Which hatchet? Are these bowls dry enough for the next step? Ah, I figured out what design to carve for that panel. Then, time to clean up the place and re-set the bench…
All the ordinary stuff is an intrusion – have to go to the dump, the bank, did I pay the bills? I just want to get back to work in the shop. All of that is just like the rest of us.
Every so often, I traipse out into the world to teach a workshop, deliver a lecture/demonstration – that sort of thing. And those audiences are pre-disposed to receive what I have to give. An interest in woodworking, furniture history, spoon carving – they’re already converts. But I know although we have woodworking interests in common, there can and will be things we don’t have in common. And that’s usually fine with me. I can get past a lot of stuff, and concentrate on our shared interests. And it has always been a great kick for me to come together with people I might otherwise not connect to…
This year, it’s been tricky, with the political climate in America and the world. I have specifically stated in many of my classes – “No politics, please.” Just to avoid the issue. Trying to be polite…and it has worked thus far.
Like I said, I can get past a lot of stuff. But…not racism. Not Nazis marching in the streets of 21st-century America. That shit doesn’t fly. Everyone should be against that…none of this “many sides” crap.
So…in the hopefully unlikely event that some of my readers are sympathetic with the KKK, Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, etc that were on display down in Charlottesville this past weekend, – if that’s you – please un-subscribe to my blog. Please stop following me on Instagram, FB…please don’t come to my classes. Please don’t buy my book, videos, spoons, etc.
For the past week or more, I have been watching various posts about the goings-on in Edale, Derbyshire – the 6th annual Spoonfest. https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/spoonfest/ I was lucky enough to attend last year, and it was a real highlight being there. Spoonfest, put on by Robin Wood and Barn the Spoon and their cadre of interns, volunteers and friends – is the inspiration and model for Greenwood Fest that I help with at Plymouth CRAFT.
so I’ve been thinking a lot about (& carving some) spoons lately. When I teach classes in it, I like to bring along spoons I’ve collected from friends and other carvers for inspiration. I didn’t get too many this year at Greenwood Fest – couldn’t keep up with the shoppers. But a week or so ago, I was at my desk when the email came in about JoJo Wood’s shop update. I didn’t bother scrolling through all the spoons – they could be sold by the time I did that. I found one I liked & ordered it. Got it! The little dipper carved in the handle…
Here’s JoJo’s –
And one I got this spring from Jögge Sundqvist.
Students always ask about where do you get this or that tool, and other references, resources etc for spoon carving. I have compiled a list, nowhere near comprehensive – of links and more that I can recommend. There are other sources out there, but I can’t keep up with them. I’ve given up trying. Formerly, I had posts about tool sources that included Country Workshops – Drew Langsner has now retired, and their tool-selling action is mostly going to be taken up through the Maine Coast Craft School…see below.
Videos –
The Spoon, the Bowl & the Knife, Wille Sundqvist film. DVD.
I didn’t shoot the whole process of making the crest rail for the bedstead. But at the nearly-last minute I thought to get out the camera. The crest is a separate piece, sitting atop the integral top rail of the headboard.
I carved the design first. Then used a small bowsaw/turning saw to cut out the profile. I shot a couple photos during the clean-up of the sawn shape. The outline I cut with the V-tool as part of the carving. Then sawed pretty close to that.
I used whatever I could get in there with to smooth off the sawn bits and bring the profile to its final shape. A couple of spokeshaves, chisels and even a bent gouge.
Here it is test-fitted. The crest rail is 56″ long and 7″ high at the center.
And a detail:
I chopped two mortises in both the top rail and the crest rail, for floating tenons to help align and secure them. Part of the inspiration for it is the crest of a wainscot chair I have made a few times. I assembled the most recent version of this chair back in April, https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2017/04/26/wainscot-chair-assembly/
I doubt (well, am damn-near dead certain) that the original chair(s) had no floating tenon between the top rail and crest. I have made and lost some crests by using the typical period construction (nails and sometimes a wooden pin between the parts) – so for the bedstead I have used what you see pictured in the chair photo here.
I keep showing up on the second-hand market! I started making furniture between 1978-80. That’s closing in on 40 years…which is a lot of furniture. During the past few years, I have heard of/seen a number of chairs I made showing up in antique/collectibles shops, auctions, and even one at…well, you’ll see. Here’s a couple examples –
This continuous arm settee I made back in 1992. A friend bought it not too many years ago, along with a windsor rocking chair, in a house-moving/divorce sale (I think). I wish I had known, I’d love to have this settee – I doubt I could make it again…but I know it’s appreciated where it now resides.
This next one I did buy, and sold again. I had it in my shop for years, a fellow called me up one day asking if he could buy it & he did. Then a couple years later, another friend called me to say one of my carved chairs was in an auction in Maine. I eventually got it through the auction, and called a couple who has collected several of my carved pieces. I offered them this chair at a reduced price, and they said they’d love to, but were out of room. An hour later, they called back & said they made space.
wainscot chair
Another wainscot had a slightly sad story to it. I made it at the museum as an award (I was the awards department for quite a while) – for our former co-worker Karin Goldstein. Sadly, Karin died quite young, from cancer. Just shy of 50 maybe. When she died, she had no local family, and some of her stuff ended up in a local shop. Another friend saw this, called to confirm it was my work, and ended up buying it for his wife, a good friend of ours, and of Karin’s. So a semi-happy ending.
This week I got a note from another friend who found a chair “made by the guy at Plimoth Plantation” – well, sort of. I was there for 20 years, but I made this chair well before that – I’d say late 1980s, maybe into 1990/91. She got it for $45. Even I could afford that!
The last one in this batch has the best story. Found at the swap shop in the Hingham, Massachusetts town dump! $5.00. A friend got it after some tussling with other dump-shoppers, and gave it to us.
I made a lot of chairs, but way more carved boxes – where are my carved boxes? Maybe they’ll be out on the 2nd-hand market in a few more years…
I’ve been working on oak furniture lately, but here’s a few spoons I have either finished, or just re-photographed. Back in May I finally took a plunge with my spoon-decoration. Being inspired by a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts’ Greek pottery galleries; I decided to use my furniture-carving ideas on a small scale – the spoon handles. Not too small a scale, some of these spoons are the largest I have made in ages.
The minute I struck the gouges on the first one – I knew I was headed in a new direction spoon-wise. Funny after all these years to branch out a bit…
Almost all are cherry crooks. There’s a few crooks left out there, waiting for me to get at ’em…
If you’d like to order a spoon, leave a comment and we can use paypal for payment and shipping arrangements. Prices include shipping in US – further afield, there will be additional charges.
thanks for your support. Back to oak now….
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July spoon #1, SOLD
large cherry crook
L: 15 3/8″ W: 3 3/4″
$165 includes shipping in US.
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July spoon 02, large cherry crook
L: 13″ W: 4″
$165 includes shipping in US.
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July spoon, large cherry crook #3
L: 13″ W: 3 1/2″
$150 includes shipping in US
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July spoon #04 – SOLD
L: 9 3/4″ W: 3″
$135 includes shipping in US
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July spoon 05 SOLD
L: 11 1/2″ W: 3″
$135 includes shipping in US
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July spoon 06, SOLD
birch; one of my typically weird-shaped spoons. I often find these sweeping, curving crooks and insist there’s a spoon in them. There is, but…it’s an unusual spoon.
L: 11 1/4″ W: 3″
$120 includes shipping in US
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July spoon 07; SOLD
cherry crook from sapwood. Back to a smaller scale.
L: 7 1/2″ W: 1 3/4″
$70 includes shipping in US
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July spoon 08; SOLD
cherry; radially-split cooking spoon.
L: 10 1/4″ W: 3″
$85 includes shipping in US
The bedstead’s headboard is moving along. Once I had the first free-hand panel carved, it was easy to carve the 2nd one. After marking out the margins and a vertical centerline, I used a compass to take a few markers – here noting where the S-scrolls at the bottom corner hit the vertical margins.
Then I chalked in a rough outline for that shape. This panel, like many from this grouping (and all 4 in this headboard) have a stylized urn at the bottom center of the panel. That shape I marked out with a square & awl to locate its top & bottom, and marked its width from the vertical centerline. The S-scrolls then fit between the urn and the bottom corner/margin.
My camera-boy (Daniel, 11 yrs old) came by & used the Ipad to shoot some Instragram stuff…here’s some leftovers. Carving this bottom corner S-scroll, in two snippets. (home-video caliber – no edits, shaky, etc – but worth a look.)
there are related S-scrolls across the top section of the panel. These reach from the corners to the vertical centerline. These top and bottom sections are the first things I block in with the V-tool.
then comes the stuff between. I sketch the vein in the larger leaf, it reaches from the centerline to the margin.
Then I carry on, doing first one side, then the other.
The whole thing is about filling in the spaces, and in this case, blending one shape to lay against another.
Here’s the V-tool outline almost all done.
Next I take a #5 gouge, in this case about 1″ wide or slightly less, and chop out between the V-tool lines, to begin removing the background.
Some beveling, some shaping. With a narrow #5.
People ask about the background punch. Mild steel, filed to leave these pyramidal points.
accents with a few #7 gouges.
And a narrow chisel. Bevel towards the waste when chopping like this.
Then pare down to the chopped mark.
Trim to length.
Bevel the back, first with a hatchet.
Then 2 planes. Feather down to nothing.
Here’s the headboard thus far. There will be plain panels below this, and a carved crest rail above. And of course, two vertical posts.
