Spoons have been with us for an awfully long time - some historians even suggest one thousand years before the time of Christ. It's one of our most basic and useful tools; often a personal spoon would be cherished as a valuable utensil and a person would carry it with him to use on his travels. The gold spoon was reserved for royalty, for they were the only ones that could afford such extravagance. The closest a wealthy layperson could come was silver; most common folk however settled with wood. It's a simple tool, one quickly made, yet every one very individual and unique.
My most common wood used in carving spoons is birch - as in a chunk of birch firewood that comes from off the woodpile outside. They are typically the perfect size for the average ladle or stirring spoon, and the plentiful supply eases the pressure of making it 'just right'. Birch is also a hardwood, making it suitable for use with food as it is odor free and holds detail well. It does however require a sharp knife.
Finish can be anything you desire, although I tend to stick with olive oil if there is any possibility it will be used with food. The joy comes from watching the design unfold as I shape the raw material into a pleasing form; the grain coming to life as the finish is applied. I never know what is hidden inside the rough, split piece of wood, yet with a little time, effort and polish it becomes a work of art. I know of no other readily available raw material that has such potential!
Unless you consider people. Millions upon millions surround us, and yet we have somehow built civilizations that simply view what is evident on the exterior
facade of our lives. We categorize and evaluate according to what we drive, where we live, how we dress, and where we work. We've come to worship anorexia as beauty; debt as success; busyness as diligence. We have become a culture that rushes around trying to cover our
rawness with glitter, never taking time to seek the inner beauty that resides on the inside of all of us. Every one of us has a story - an interesting and distinctive past; a beautiful, unique future. We simply need to whittle past all of the false, fabricated exterior to find it.
Maybe that's why I find such inspiration from carving spoons. They are a great reminder to me to live differently every time I pick up another piece of wood off the woodpile.
Spoon in a box - Shirley Adler design carved from birch, finished with linseed oil and gloss lacquer. Box 6mm okume plywood, linseed oil and spray shellac. Inspiration for box lid incised carving adapted from Beychevelle Vineyards logo.
Lily ladle - birch, tung oil and spray laquer finish.
Bottom ladles - birch, olive oil finish, jatoba and maple inlays.
.
Four times I tried to coax a narrow strip of spalted birch into a nice, round half circle; by soaking it overnight, by steam bending, by hot pipe bending - all with the same result. I'd get a few degrees of deflection and snap! I'd be holding two separate pieces in my hand. It was getting discouraging to say the least.
The strip of birch didn't want to bend. It liked things just like they were. After all, that's how it was made to be, had always been that way, and would change over its dead body! So with all the resistance it could muster, it balked all my pressures to bend and as a result ended up broken and discarded. 
Spoons have been with us for an awfully long time - some historians even suggest one thousand years before the time of Christ. It's one of our most basic and useful tools; often a personal spoon would be cherished as a valuable utensil and a person would carry it with him to use on his travels. The gold spoon was reserved for royalty, for they were the only ones that could afford such extravagance. The closest a wealthy layperson could come was silver; most common folk however settled with wood. It's a simple tool, one quickly made, yet every one very individual and unique.
