The summer has been too short, this year. Maybe it’s because the academic year ended late for me, or maybe it is because we never really had much sunshine in Groningen this year. Maybe it’s just that we’ve have too many irons in the fire. New house, young child, full-time jobs, tables to build, food columns to write, research projects to supervise, spoons to carve… The list is endless. Not that I’m complaining. As intense as the year has been, it has also been incredibly fulfilling and rewarding.
If you’ve been wondering how this spoon-making process actually looks, the following series of videos posted by Robin Wood should make things a bit clearer. He divides the process in 4 steps, each accomplished with a specific tool. Roughing out is done with a hatchet or small axe, further refining of the overall shape with a knife, then the bowl of the spoon is carved out with a hook knife, before the whole thing is finished with careful smoothing cuts.
Hello again dear reader (the singular here is not, I suspect, just a figure of speech). Last time, I posted about a spoon I made out of some wood I salvaged from a chestnut tree that had to be cut down due to old age. I figured that it was only fair to extend its life a little bit longer by making a few useful things out of it. It turns out that spoon making is also extremely fun.
I used to, but no longer, live next to the oldest tree in Groningen. I say used to, not because I moved, but because the tree, a horse chestnut, no longer stands here. It had been getting weaker and, either for safety reasons, or because it was terminal, the city decided to have it removed and replaced by a copper beech.