David Western's Portland Eisteddfod Lovespoon

Happy Valentine's

2012-01-20T13:58:00.000-08:00

With Valentine's Day creeping ever closer, I thought I would post a blog now...especially since I probably won't get a chance closer to the time.

If ever there was a day made for lovespoons, Valentine's Day has got to be it. It's the perfect opportunity to be sentimental, passionate and nauseatingly romantic and have everyone love you for it!!

Although I have carved loads of spoons over the years for all kinds of Valentine's lovers, the spoon I have chosen to picture wasn't actually carved for Valentine's Day at all. However, the reason I chose it was because it possess all the requisite romantic detailing and depth of feeling I feel is required for an occassion like Valentine's. For me personally, this would be the type of spoon I would want to make if I was going to send a lovespoon for Valentine's Day. (No doubt my wife is in the background yelling, "Fat chance of that!" in one of those classic cases of the cobbler's family going without shoes)

It has everything I would look for in a romantic lovespoon design, but what I really love about it (aside from its obvious romantic message) is its exuberance!! This is a spoon which is unabashed and heartfelt and that makes it really hard not to be drawn in to its passionate enthusiasm!

The spoon itself celebrates the union of a Welsh man with a German woman and features artistic elements of both cultures in a vibrant display of Celtic knotwork and Alpine-style chip carving. The design is very, very contemporary BUT retains a very traditional feel which would not have been out of place 200 years ago. In case you are wondering about the text found on the spoon it is the Welsh and German words for 'sweetheart'...go ahead, try to tell me you wouldn't like someone saying that to you!!

This is the stuff the lovespoon does best...it actually says how much you love and value that special someone. There's no 'last minute' desperation or 'I'll grab whatever comes to hand' half-heartedness about a lovespoon...they require thought, effort and emotional investment. As far as I'm concerned, those grossly overpriced bunches of wilted roses and sugary chocolates in flowery boxes are for those of a 'less decorous nature', REAL romantics would go for the lovespoon every time!!

So even if you read this too late to get started on a Valentine's lovespoon for this year, hopefully you'll now have it in mind for next. Unless, of course, you'd prefer to be like the media and content yourself with the familiar mediocrity of the same old mundane chocolates and flowers story over and over for eternity!!

Flattered or Offended?

2012-01-14T16:05:00.000-08:00

Recently, while having a browse through lovespoons sites on the internet, I came across a couple of copies of a spoon design which I did a few years ago with artist Jan Buehler. The design originated with a delicate little sketch Jan had made of a vase of flowers. I modified it a bit so that it could be rendered in wood and stylized the flowers a little. Right off the bat, Tulips became one of my most popular lovespoons and is one of the few designs I have ever carved more than once. In fact over the years, I have probably made ten or twelve Tulips in a variety of sizes and wood types, so it doesn't surprise me that other carvers would find the design equally alluring!

I know there is an old saying which implies that copying is the sincerest form of flattery and I am right onboard with that sentiment.....until money starts changing hands.

If a carver wants to copy one of my spoon designs as a gift for a sweetie, as a personal challenge or as a fundraiser for a charitable event, I really am flattered!!

If another carver's version of my spoon gets posted onto a website to advertise that carver's skill, then I think the least that carver can do is acknowledge where the design came from by mentioning my name. That, I believe, is just common courtesy!

If a carver puts a spoon carved from my designs on Etsy or Ebay etc., then it is theft pure and simple....and I definitely am not flattered any more.

I work very, very hard to make the best lovespoons I possibly can. When my designs are taken to promote other carvers or to make money for them, I can't help but be offended. I certainly would never dream of doing that to them and I don't like it being done to me!!

Although I'm having a good old rant here, it's important to note that I am not a miserable old coot who wants to keep everything to himself!! I am approachable and I try to always be supportive and helpful with other carvers, BUT, I am trying to make a living like everyone else!

While I am flattered that the carvers of these two spoons enjoyed 'Tulips' enough to copy the design, I can't help but be a bit offended that neither bothered to acknowledge the origins of the design when they posted the pictures to the internet.

I would have been even more offended if I had found these on Ebay (fortunately, I didn't) as it would be a copyright infringement and a theft of my intellectual property.

The internet is a miraculous thing and is the sole reason I can make a business of carving handmade wooden lovespoons in this mass-production world of ours. Unfortunately, that same internet can be a bit of a 'Wild West' and things like this can happen. I can only hope that in years to come, I will be flattered more than I am offended!!

2012-01-05T10:01:00.000-08:00

A World of Spoons!

Despite all the forecasts of yet another year of economic doom and gloom, my year got off to an excellent start when renowned spoon collector Norman Stevens sent me a box of spoons from his extensive collection for me to study. I've never been fortunate enough to see a Norwegian wedding spoon or a Swiss creme spoon 'in person' before, so the opportunity to handle some of these remarkable pieces has been very inspiring!

Several of the spoons in the above picture date from the early part of the 1900's which makes them even more valuable to me as they are links between the hand-craft world of yesteryear and our more machine based modern era. Their elegant, efficient craftsmanship has given me a bit of a schooling in how things were done in the old days and shows me how beautiful the workmanship of many old pieces really was.

The really good news for me among these spoons is the high quality craftsmanship of some of the most recent pieces. A Romanian spoon dated 1999 and a Russian spoon from the latter half of the 20th Century both display exquisite workmanship and design showing clearly that excellent craft is both possible and desired in our busy, ultra-modern world!!

The bad news was the appallingly poor quality Welsh lovespoon (of the 'gift shop' variety) which I could not force myself to include in the above photo!! For me, as a Welsh-born carver, it was simply too embarrassing to show! Honestly, I could have cried when I saw it beside all these elegant and lovely European spoons. Although I understand the commercial gift industry's desire to crank these horrors out at their impossibly low price point to capture the 'impulse purchase' market AND I agree with the arguement that they keep the lovespoon in the public eye; I can't help but feel they are doing the lovespoon a colossal disservice!

Especially in Wales, but also among tourist visitors, there is a growing perception that the clunky, soulless, style-less, dark-stained monstrosities that are being pumped out of factories from Canton, Cardiff to Canton, China are what lovespoons represent and what they should look like. This notion makes me weep!!!!

The spoons I have shown in the above picture are what it IS about...and many of them aren't even 'lovespoons'!!

These spoons are all made with caring, passion, patience and craftsmanship. They are elegant, beautiful and cry out to be handled!! In short, they are lovely... and THAT is the example I always wish to follow when I carve my own lovespoons!!

For those interested, here is the listing for the spoons shown above:

Top left: Swedish spoon with ball in cage circa 1900

Top right: Swiss cream spoon with fretted bird figure on handle circa mid 20th C (?)

Lower extreme left: double bowl Norwegian wedding spoon circa late 1800's to mid 1900's

Middle left: Russian spoon with double horse head crown and chip carving circa 21st C

Middle: Chip carved Romanian spoon carved in 1999

Middle right: Swiss tourist spoon with high relief foliage carving circa 1900

Extreme right: Painted high relief Norwegian spoon circa 1900 (?)

2011-12-17T15:19:00.000-08:00

Nadolig Llawen Everyone!!

As another year draws to a close, I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone the very best of the season. Nadolig Llawen (Merry Christmas) to all those who celebrate Christmas and best wishes to all those who don't.

I can't pretend it hasn't been a very tough year to be a lovespoon carver, with economies collapsing left and right, with massive foreclosures, 'rationalization' everywhere and everyone holding on to their pennies, it is as bad as I have ever seen it. Fortunately for me, there are still people out there who value a truly personal, entirely hand-made gift and know the real value of my lovespoons! To all those who commissioned one of my spoons, I send my sincerest thanks. To those who visited my blog and my site but couldn't order a spoon this year, I hope the next year is a better one and I get the chance to show you what I can do!!

To those of you who could care less about lovespoons, I send my deepest sympathies!
But thankfully, it hasn't all been doom and gloom! This year's West Coast Eisteddfod in Los Angeles was a great success and your generous donations to the 'Win the Lovespoon and Support the Eisteddfod' fund helped make the event the grand time it was! This year's design was embellished with artwork selected from Americymru member entries and really did make carving this year's spoon that extra bit special! Lucky prize winner Carey Dietrich went home with a beautiful artwork which I hope will bring her many, many years of pleasure! I think this is a great picture of her, and her most excellent tshirt sets the spoon off perfectly!!

I hope that next year's Eisteddfod is even bigger and better than this year's and I look forward to carving the lovespoon for it!

Once again, I wish one and all the very best for the remainder of this year and for the year to come!

2011-12-09T19:32:00.000-08:00

I recently received a couple of emails asking me to explain some of my strong feelings about lovespoon bowls. Those who have read my blog posts or my book "The Fine Art of Carving Lovespoons" will already know that I tend to get a bit evangelical about the lowly bowl and have very little time for the clumsy renderings of the commercial lovespoon industry.

For me, the bowl is a crucial element in the lovespoon's design and is one which needs to be handled with the same care and attention lavished on the handle. A quick look on virtually any giftshop lovespoon site will reveal a veritable ocean of horrible machine-made bowls all equally mundane and clunky (as illustrated above by some of these I have acquired over the years), none with any style or flow. Sadly, these have almost become the 'norm' for Welsh lovespoons as carvers all strive to knock off quick, cheap product that will be impulse purchased by souvenir hunters. And that is ok for the souvenir industry, but I think that carvers who make the real, hand-made deal should strive for much, much more. In the old days, the carvers lavished a great deal of time, skill and attention on the bowls of their spoons. Even the most rudimentary designs were invariably capped off with a lovely, elegant bowl. They knew (probably instinctively) that the bowl was the foil to the busy activity of the handle and it was made all the more profound by its quiet elegance.

I try to capture that traditional elegance with my spoon bowls and will often spend as much carving and finishing time on them as I do on the entire handle. It can be tiresome and tedious work getting the bowl nice and fair, but utimately (as shown by these examples) the effort is very much worth it! A sleek, well proportioned bowl which has been carefully worked is almost a work of art on its own.

The beautifully rendered bowl tells everyone who views the spoon that the carver cared! It says that no effort was spared and nothing was overlooked in the quest to 'do the job right'.

I believe that the bowl says as much about the carver as it does about the design. Like all good things in life, it is worth some pain for so much gain!

There is much beauty to be found in these simple forms and I urge you to both look for that beauty and demand it when you view, commission or make a lovespoon.

Here endeth the sermon!!!

2011-12-02T09:41:00.000-08:00

Back to the Future

I generally endeavour to carve spoons which push the technical and visual boundaries of lovespoon tradtion as far as I possibly can. I rarely repeat a design unless I think there is something new I can do with it and am not really very fond of the type of designs which appear on 'giftshop' lovespoon sites. A study of the old lovespoons found in the museum collections of Sweden, Norway, Wales etc., has lead me to realize that the souvenir lovespoon now equated with the 'traditional lovespoon' looks very little like its ancestors. For starters, almost every spoon I have viewed in a museum collection sports a very elegant and finely carved bowl. Comparing the bowls carved by lovestruck young men (whose simple tool kits were secondary to the intense passion and patience they applied to their work) with the chunky machined bowls produced in seconds by computer controlled cutters really is like comparing chalk and cheese.

The old spoons also have feeling!! Despite simple symbols and very basic carving techniques, the spoons have been emotionally decorated. There is passion in them which can never be matched by a machine made object. I know that one day computer controlled cutters will be evolved to the point where they can imitate even the little carver's mistakes and oddities that make old spoons jump to life,, BUT they will never be able to capture that je ne sais quoi which a handcarved lovespoon has in spades.

So I decided to go back to the past to inspire myself a bit for the future. These spoons aren't direct copies of any particular spoon, but they are amalgamations of themes which seem to work well together. Some are based on the Scandinavian lovespoon tradition and some on the Welsh. I think that revisiting the ancient spoons and re-familiarizing myself with where lovespoons came from will help me to chart a stronger course as I attempt to put my own personal spin on the tradition. Despite the fact that most of these spoons are pretty simple both in design and in the their technical requirements, they are lovely little spoons which I have become very fond of carving!!

2011-11-23T14:50:00.000-08:00

The Marvellous Spoon Man

A couple of years back I received an email commission request from a gentleman named Norman Stevens.

Norman was collecting wooden 'teaspoons' crafted by North American and overseas spooncarvers and he had been given my name.

He commissioned a small lovespoon with only one restriction on the design...that it be a maximum of 9 inches in length.

I carved him a Celtic style spoon with a single small ball in the cage on the handle. The spoon was good fun to make with the ball in cage throwing out more challenges than I had expected. Overall the spoon looked great and I happily sent it off to him.

During the intervening years, I have kept in touch with Norman and have watched the collection explode from an early projection of around 150 carvers to somewhere in the region of 300!! With each passing year, the spoons Norman shows are more and more stunning...there seems to be no limits to the design and technical skills of the various carvers who have contributed to Norman's collection.

So beautiful are the spoons, that Norman now routinely shows them to admiring audiences throughout the USA.

As a spoon carver, I am delighted that collectors like Norman exist! Fine handcraft goes on all around us, yet gets precious little recognition. Museums and galleries seem scarcely interested in it and the art world definitely turns its nose up at its dust-covered blue-collar cousins. So it is a rare treat when someone like Norman takes the bull by the horns and expends a great deal of his personal resources to collect our work. I think one day, Norman's collection will be studied by future generations and as a snapshot of spooncarver's art at the beginning of the 21st Century and it will be invaluable to them.

In fact, it is already reaping benefits within the spooncarving community. Any carver who has seen pictures of Norman's collection cannot fail but be inspired by the work of his or her counterparts. Even over the few years Norman has been collecting, the quality of work being produced has improved dramatically.

Many of us have since been moved to carve second or third spoons for Norman as our own skills improve or as we get a bolt of inspiration we think Norman might appreciate.

For me, that inspiration has come in the form of the "Crashing Wave over a Tranquil Pool" spoon. Now usually I don't get too zen with my spoon names...preferring something like Wave spoon or Curved spoon...or something equally imaginative. But this spoon is a bit different. For a start it was inspired directly by Norman's collection and by the desire to contribute a really memorable design to it.

The second reason I feel I can be all artsy-fartsy with the name is that this spoon was a technical nightmare which took me to the brink. Thirdly, I called it this long-winded name

purely because I can and nobody can stop me...except maybe that little chubby cop with the pepperspray who shows up everywhere lately.

But joking aside, this was a very serious spoon which I hope will make a nice addition to Norman's collection and which will make an eloquent way for me to say thanks to him for being so supportive of the work we spoon carvers undertake.

Being a spoon carver is probably not the smartest career move a person can make. Let me correct that.... it is definitely not the smartest career move...but it is a career that is full of endless challenges and pleasures. Having these spoons in Norman's outstanding collection is certainly one of those pleasures for me!

The New Partner

2011-11-12T14:09:00.001-08:00

I've got a new partner at David Western Lovespoons! Morris, the scruffy hound, has taken on an executive position as the company 'muscle'. Any clients of mine who forget to make prompt payment upon receiving their lovespoons can look forward to getting a knock at the door if Morris gets ticked off!

So far though, Morris has been limiting his apprentice activities to judiciously sniffing the carvings, licking the occasional bit of dust off the workbench and chewing the chisel handles when I'm not paying enough attention to him.

He's even taken a bit of a shine to lovespoon design and routinely joins me at the drafting table where he indulges his passions for eating my erasors, delicately nibbling on the corners of my drawing paper and satisfying his newly acquired taste for graphite pencils.

It is in the area of finishing that I truly expect him to shine though. He already displays exemplary skill finding the smoothest sections of the spoons and likes to help polish them for me by laying his generously fur covered body on them whenever possible. He is especially good at buffing out beeswax polishes with his tongue. Alas, sometimes his enthusiasm means there is very little wax left for polishing, but this is just inexperience showing and I am confident he will learn to exercise restraint as he gets more used to the work.

I'm proud to welcome Morris into the family business and I look forward to at least the next decade working together to bring our clients dramatic and wonderful handmade lovespoons!!

LA 2011 Eisteddfod Lovespoon Winner Announced!

2011-09-28T12:30:00.000-07:00

The Winner - Carey Dietrich

We're thrilled to announce that Carey Dietrich is the winner of this year’s West Coast Eisteddfod lovespoon. Although I didn’t manage to get down to LA for the event, I have heard that it was a great success which gets better and better each year.

I would like to thank everyone who donated to the Eisteddfod for their kind generosity and hope that you will be back next year to help again. I only wish that I could carve a thousand spoons, instead of just the one, so that everyone could win one. But even if you didn’t win, please know that your donation will help the West Coast Eisteddfod to continue its growth. It isn’t easy getting a cultural event off the ground in these tough economic times, so it is a great boon to have such great support!

Keeping a Welsh Tradition Alive in North America

2011-08-22T16:34:00.000-07:00

I love what I do!! For quite a few years now I have been carving lovespoons professionally and I can say without any doubt whatsoever, it is the best job I've ever had! Every morning when I glance at the news, I see death, destruction, hate, animosity, greed and corruption oozing from every corner of the globe, yet in my little world I am completely focussed on creating expressions of love and profound caring for clients who love one another. Every day, my problems are centred on telling stories of love and passion through carved wood. When my clients are thinking about their lovespoons, they forget about stock market fluctuations, religious wars or any of the other maladies which daily batter them and their fellow global citizens. They enjoy an opportunity to think beautiful and romantic thoughts while we create an artwork which radiates all that is good about them and their loved ones. Sure, the money is nothing to write home about (the expression 'Carvers are starvers' didn't come out of thin air) but the satisfaction and the sense of doing something really, really worthwhile in an increasingly negative world makes my career completely worth it!! Even disastrous breaks and accidents while carving don't seem so bad when I'm carving a lovespoon!

One of the great 'side-effects' of my career as a lovespoon carver has been the opportunity to keep a centuries old tradition alive in North America. This is the one of the main reasons I am so delighted to carve the annual lovespoon for the West Coast Eisteddfod. Some traditions are worth keeping and I think that lovespoon carving and the cultural traditions represented by the Eisteddfod are plum examples of those. However, neither lovespoon carving or staging Eisteddfods are easy to do in our modern, tech oriented society without having a lot of support. In my case, I am subject to all the vagaries of any business, but in the case of the Eisteddfod, it can only survive and grow with active participation. Whether you enter some of the competitions, attend the events, donate some funds or simply tell your friends, family and acquaintances about it, I urge you to help keep the Eisteddfod going.

I have donated my Eisteddfod lovespoon for you to win. All you have to do is send in a dollar or two (although more is always gladly received!!) and you will be entered for the draw prize. Each dollar you donate equals one opportunity to win (so if you are Warren Buffet, you could be in with a pretty good chance)!!

So once again, here is a look at the spoon and I hope it will inspire you to hit the donate button!!

Presenting, the 2011 David Western West Coast Eisteddfod Lovespoon!

2011-07-19T15:30:00.000-07:00

From Ceri Shaw at AmeriCymru:

2011 West Coast Eisteddfod Lovespoon Complete!!!!!

2011-07-01T15:26:00.000-07:00

TA DAAAA!


2011 West Coast Eisteddfod Lovespoon Front View ( click to enlarge image )

The 2011 Eisteddfod Lovespoon is finally done! I am just applying a few coats of oil to bring up the colouration and to protect it from the elements a bit and then it will be ready to go! I'm really pleased with how it has turned out...the wood has a soft amber tone with flecks of colour from the spalting which give it some real liveliness. The design worked out as I had hoped it would with the dragon being dominant, but not overwhelming (or cliche). I'm also delighted with how the contest designs worked out. They are all very eye-catching and relevant....I'm glad I didn't have to decide which ones went on there though, there were a lot of really good ideas! I think my favourite part of this year's spoon is the look of the knotwork. I'm very pleased with how soft and 'organic' the birch makes the knots look; they are very touchable!!! I think this year's spoon is a very unique design which will go very nicely on some lucky donor's wall!!!

2011 West Coast Eisteddfod Lovespoon
Back View ( click to enlarge image )

This year I included L.C.E. 2011 on the back surface of the design...even though I know the official name of the event is the West Coast Eisteddfod, the seditious side of my nature couldn't help itself, and I reached back to the event's original moniker, The Left Coast Eisteddfod-- cheeky yes, but who is going to stop me??) I thought we should commemorate the event in a way which was both noticeable AND unobtrusive (with contradictory ideas like THAT, I should have been a politician!!) so I figured some thin lettering along the back of the spoon would be the way to do it! With the knotwork carved as thoroughly on the back as it is on the front, the spoon will cast some nice viewing shadows when hung on display and the shadows will help to give the knotwork even more depth!

This spoon represents a great deal of thought, time and effort and I hope that you are as pleased with the results as I am. The whole purpose of carving the spoon has been, and continues to be, to raise funds which will be used to stage our Eisteddfod. It is my hope that you agree the West Coast Eisteddfod is a great idea worthy of your support and that you will consider donating a dollar or two even if you don't think you'll be able to attend. Every dollar you donate equals a chance to win this spoon and I thank you in advance for your kind donations!

Why the Eisteddfod?

2011-06-21T22:32:00.000-07:00

I've been carving spoons for a couple of decades now and although it is definitely not a way to get rich (or modestly affluent or even to reach the status of 'working poor') it IS soul satisfying work.

I love what I do and I feel extremely fortunate to play my part in a 350 year old tradition each and every day.

When I first started carving professionally and was struggling to be recognized, I would donate spoons to charitable causes hoping that I could generate some interest in my art and generate future orders.

Sadly, it seldom ever worked out that way, so I decided I would never again donate or give my spoons away.

Then I stumbled across Americymru and their far-fetched scheme to start an Eisteddfod in North America. I was pretty convinced that the idea would never get off the ground and it would receive little in the way of interest and support from the public. In short, I thought it would be a complete disaster. I wrote to Gaabi and Ceri to inquire about their plans for the Eisteddfod and before I knew it, found myself swept up in their enthusiasm.

They were desperate for financial support but having nothing much in the way of cash to send them, I volunteered to carve an Eisteddfod spoon which they could auction off to help raise funds for the event.

There were a couple of excellent reasons why I went back on my 'no donations' rule to support the Eisteddfod. First and foremost, I love the idea of a Welsh event of this nature happening in North America and wanted be involved in helping it happen. As important, I wanted to link the lovespoon to the Eisteddfod because I believe the lovespoon is a Welsh icon of great (but largely misunderstood) cultural significance. Although the lovespoon may, at first glance, lack the sexiness of Catherine Zita Jones, the drama of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor belting the daylights out of each other or the mellifluous sweetness of Cerys Matthews in full throat...when done right, a lovespoon contains all that marvelous Welsh passion and more!


2009	2010	2011

Presenting REAL lovespoons to the Eisteddfod audience gives me a chance to illustrate what these little wooden wonders are all about!!

Finally, I hope that auctioning my lovespoons will help to give a financial boost to a fledgling cultural event, so I am not at all ashamed begging you to donate to the Eisteddfod and do your best to win the completed West Coast Eisteddfod Lovespoon Mark III!!!

Here Be Dragons Mark III

2011-06-01T12:43:00.000-07:00

I've been beavering away on the sections of the Americymru spoon which our prize winning design ideas are to fill. Everything went very well and the front face of the spoon is almost completed! A bit of tweaking and some judicious shaving here-and-there is all that is required now!

I'm more than pleased with the beautiful grain and colourful figure of the birch used for this year's spoon. It is gorgeous stuff!! Like last year's spoon, the carving has gone very well and the wood seems to handle all the various design ideas without getting crumbly or cracking. I think it will be a lovely spoon when it is done!

I really sweated about carving Laura's Daffodil design...both because we worked together on last year's spoon and I know how elegant and delicate she makes her flowers and because I decided not to fret cut through the design. Usually Laura's flowers have their surroundings cut away so that they can stand proud without the weight of the background pulling them down. This year I didn't do that, so there was pressure on me to get the flowers nice and light and not have the background become too obtrusive. Hopefully, I've done it right and Laura will be happy with it.... otherwise it is back to the drawing board for me!!! I positioned the Daffs design at the foot of the dragon's body so as to make a symbolic link with the ground. I also thought the earth makes the right metaphor for growth and that is what our Eisteddfods have been all about over these last 3 years!!

The Harp design came out very well too! The harp seems nice and full and stands out clearly from the background with the text bringing some action to the big space on the right side of the circle. I think this design will certainly illustrate the importance of music both to the Eisteddfod and to the Welsh people. It's location at the Dragon's heart is also critical with the metaphor a simple and fairly obvious one!

The Awen was another design I sweated over a bit. I was tempted to fret cut it out to really make it bold, but in the end I decided to stay with a very simple and elegant low relief carving. Because of its ethereal nature, I felt it was ideally suited for the wing area of the dragon as it would have an association with flight and with other-worldliness (is that a word...it is now).

The Dragon's head is nicely set off with this lovely little piece of abalone inlay. (In case I am about to take a hammering from the environmental crowd for using abalone, I cut this particular piece from an old ashtray I found at the Salvation Army Store a few years back. It seemed a shame for something so beautiful to be used for that purpose, so I have recycled, using it in dozens of spoons over the years.....besides, I don't even eat seafood!!!) The figure of the wood perfectly accentuates both the body and the back scales of our dragon and brings some extra zip to the Celtic knotwork....niiiice!!

So there it is so far! I hope that now you can see it is, indeed, coming along, you will be inspired to donate a few bucks to the Eisteddfod for your chance to win it!! Someone will be taking it home after the Eisteddfod (and no, you don't have to be present to win) so enter now and enter often!!!

Your donation (whether exceedingly generous or very close to the bone) will be used to make our Eisteddfod better and better!! Help hoist the Driag Goch amidst the sea of tartan and shamrocks that is Celtic North America!!!

West Coast Eisteddfod L.A. Lovespoon 2011 - And The Winners Are......

2011-05-17T21:27:00.000-07:00

After due deliberation David is pleased to announce the winners of the design element competition for this years West Coast Eisteddfod Lovespoon . The finished piece which will be on display at the event at the Barnsdall Art Center between September 23rd and 25th, incorporates three design elements which were selected by popular suggestion and vote both here and on the AmeriCymru website . From an initial list of about 30 suggestions the final slate was whittled down to just five contenders. Here are the three winners:-

3. Cerdd: The harp is seen as the symbol of Welsh music (Cerdd is the word for music in Welsh). The Welsh are renowned for their musicality and music is always an important part of the Eisteddfod experience.

2. The Awen: Awen is a Welsh word for "(poetic) inspiration". Used historically to describe the poetic inspiration of the bards, it is a beautifully apt and very stylish symbol for an Eisteddfod spoon!

1. This lovely design by Laura Gorun includes the ever popular Welsh Daffodils and leeks. These iconic symbols of Wales are always a beautiful addition to any lovespoon design!

The Harp design won outright with 24.36% of the vote whilst the Daffodils and Awen both tied for second place with 21.79%. The winners each of whom will receive a copy of David's book, "The Fine Art of Carving Lovespoons" are:-

Jennifer Brodeur
Brian Y Tarw Lwyd
Laura Gorun

Many thanks to all who contributed designs and/or voted in the competition. We will present the first two named winners with their prizes at the West Coast Eisteddfod in September and Laura's copy will be mailed.

Please don't forget that the principal purpose of all this is to raise funds for this years event. So if you have a few ( or many ) dollars to spare please consider buying a few tickets for the grand prize draw which will take place at the Eisteddfod. You can enter the prize draw via the 'Donate' button in the right hand column on David Western's Lovespoon Blog or in the left hand column on AmeriCymru.net.

Bookmark this blog for further developments and to follow the creation of this unique work of art.

Voting Ends Midnight Tonight!

2011-05-14T14:43:00.000-07:00

Tonight marks the end of our vote to pick the winning design elements for this year's West Coast Eisteddfod Lovespoon - see them in my last blog post here -

Vote and let us know which three of this designs should be included in this year's spoon!

Time To Go to the Polls

2011-05-03T22:15:00.000-07:00

As Canadians head to the polls to elect a new government, I thought this would be a perfect time for a vote on which three of the following 5 carefully selected choices will be the ones to use on the West Coast Eisteddfod 2011 Lovespoon. Vote early and vote often...just kidding about the often...but do vote which designs you'd like included on the finished spoon.

We had loads of suggestions to choose from and have gone with the following designs. We're keeping the names hidden until the voting is over so that there can be no claims of favouritism and no vote rigging etc.. Many of the ideas we received were in text form, so I have interpreted them as best I could.

1. This lovely design includes the ever popular Welsh Daffodils and leeks. These iconic symbols of Wales are always a beautiful addition to any lovespoon design!

4. Gair (Use the picture of the book and pen) Gair (the Welsh word for 'word') is symbolized by a book and quill. As fluid and sonorous with their language as they are with their singing, Welsh literature is a vital component of Eisteddfod competitioin.

5. Celf: To represent Celf (the Welsh word for art) I have used an old fashioned movie camera and a Hollywood Star. Because this year's Eisteddfod is happening in Los Angeles, the movie industry seemed the perfect representative for the arts community as it relates to the Eisteddfod.

So there you go!!! Pick the 3 you like best and we'll see which ones wind up on the spoon!!

And in case you have forgotten what the spoon looks like, here it is roughed out but with the three circular areas left untouched. I'm excited to see which designs will be selected and even more excited to carve them onto the spoon! Every year the West Coast Eisteddfod gets better and better and it is my fervent hope that the spoons we carve for it get better too.

Please remember you can win this spoon!! Everyone who donates to the Eisteddfod gets a chance to win...each dollar equals one chance, so the more you donate, the better your odds!

Which designs shall go on this year's David Western West Eisteddfod Lovespoon?customer surveys

A Royal Wedding Spoon

2011-04-09T10:51:00.000-07:00

For a while now, people have been asking me if I would be making lovespoon for the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. My answer has been no. Because they don't know me and I don't know them, an unsolicited gift to a couple who would prefer donations were made to charity didn't seem at all the right thing to do.

HOWEVER, to challenge myself and work out design ideas I will occasionally make spoons I have no intention of selling or giving away. These spoons let me blow off some steam, have a bit of fun and not worry too much about how they will be received. The more I thought about it, the more I decided I DID want to make a 'wedding' spoon, but only so that I could compare it with any which might be given to them by Welsh governmental bodies or by Elton John and David Beckham. As I generally work in a bit of a vacuum, it is sometimes nice to see how my vision of lovespoon carving plays out against what is going on in the rest of the world...hopefully, someone somewhere will have thought of the lovespoon as a gift and I will be able to see how my work compares!

As a bit of a bonus challenge for this particular spoon, I should note that I know nothing of the Royal couple other than what comes to me via that ever-reliable source of information, the tabloid media. As a result, the design aspect of this spoon was quite unusual. Usually, my clients provide me with information about themselves or the person receiving the spoon and then it is a fairly straightforward task to make a spoon which suits their tastes and circumstances. But this one is based on pure guess-work.

Anyway, without any further preamble here is what I came up with!!

From everything I have seen and read, the Royal couple seem a modern and forward thinking pair who don't appear to be mired in the sticky mud of rigid tradition. I wanted the spoon's overall design to reflect that attitude with a design that is very contemporary in style, yet maintains a traditional feel. These aren't easy concepts to marry but the use of a broad, 'panel' style handle allowed me to keep the essence of traditional Welsh spoons while providing a canvas for the very modern design.

The spoon handle itself is a stylized representation of the Welsh Dragon which I felt was a key component of any spoon given to William Wales. The couple seem committed to living and working in Wales and William may one day inherit his father's title of Prince of Wales, so there is no more apt symbol than the Welsh dragon. This particular Dragon design sprang directly from the one I used as the basis for this year's West Coast Eisteddfod spoon being carved on this blog (which WILL be given to a lucky recipient after the donation raffle draw this September!!!).

The dragon is regal and proud but not overbearing in its demeanour and contains a number of design elements intended to personalize the spoon for the couple. Much of of the body has been left unadorned though, so the sweeping flow of its form and the beauty of the wood grain can be easily seen. A long ribbon of Celtic knotwork forms the edge of the dragon's wing, symbolizing endless love and acting as a subtle nod to the Celtic history of Wales. The dragon's leg's and feet terminate at the bowl which has been left deliberately plain to highlight the extraordinary 'tiger stripe' grain figure which only occurs at that one spot on the wood.

The dragon's head bends around to enfold a section of endless (or eternal) Celtic knotwork forming the stylized flames erupting from the dragon's mouth and also symbolically suggesting the notion of endless love. Keen eyes may notice that there are no hearts on this lovespoon...which is a most unusual thing...but I wanted love to be symbolized by the various Celtic knots found throughout the design. Speaking of eyes, the beautiful inlaid abalone eye reflects light beautifully and really brings the dragon to life!

At the heart of the Dragon, as a personal symbol for Kate, I carved a small 'Sun Mask'. In many cultures the sun represents light, warmth and all things good and masks are often carved for ceremonial dances celebrating its beneficent power. For William, it seems that Kate represents all these values.

For William, I have, on the dragon's wing, carved a small eagle which represents flight, strength and bravery...all qualities he displays routinely on the job as a search and rescue helicopter pilot. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo handy of that detail so I'll need you to take my word for it when I say it looks really good!!!!

For me personally, the strongest detail on the spoon in terms of symbolism is without doubt the triangular knot forming dragon's feet which contains a symbolic wedding ring. Traditionally, the ring would be carved from the same piece of wood as a bit of a 'carvers trick', but I wanted the ring to be of different material to the rest of the spoon. I also knew it would NOT be any type of gold, silver or other metal. I think wood tends to be viewed as the poor cousin of metal and it irks me. THIS ring is laminated layers of wood. For me the laminations represents the many peoples and nations who have been united by the crown (and just as often divided by it) and I wanted the ring to represent responsibility. For William and Kate, their marriage will not only represent a responsibility to one another but also to the many millions they may one day represent as King and Queen. Thus the ring is held by a three corner knot. One side for Kate, one for William and one for the public.

But it isn't all serious stuff! As mentioned earlier, the bowl shape has no symbolism, no deeper meaning, no reflections on the human condition. It is simply a celebration of a beautiful piece of wood!

So, there it is, my version of a Royal Wedding Spoon. Maybe one day if I meet William when I flake out on a hike up Mt. Snowdon and he picks me up in his helicopter, I'll say, "Mate, I've got something for you!" Until then, this is the only place it will be seen!

Last Week to Be Part of This Year's Spoon Design!

2011-03-31T12:48:00.000-07:00

There's only one week left in our 'help design the spoon' contest! So jump up off your backside, grab a pencil, unleash your creative 'inner-self' and sort out an entry or two - one of the easiest art projects you'll ever do. Seriously, the circles we need filling are only 2 inches in diameter each!! If you've been thinking about....its time to stop procrastinating and start scribbling! You could win a book AND the admiration of all and sundry!!!! C,mon...you can do it!!!!

If you have already entered...well done!! If you haven't...keep this one important thought in mind.....once we pick the winners, you'll never be able to say, "pfffft, I could have done waaaay better"....because frankly, you didn't!!!! So get in there, scratch out some lines and be part the fun!!!!

To motivate you, here's my contribution...none of which will appear on the final product even though I'm pretty pleased with the stylized Eagle and will definitely use it somewhere. The Beaver is pretty cool but any half-way competent NW Coast artist would likely only give me a C for effort and probably wouldn't be that impressed by my handling of line and form....and the stylized leek???? Well, it didn't exactly turn out like I hoped. SO, there you go, I've hung myself out there for all to see and now its your turn to enter some really motivated ideas and consign these to the bin.

From Dave's "editor": We'll choose the winning designs next weekend so this is your last chance to submit some Welsh designs, Celtic symbols or Celtic designs and to be part of creating this incredible piece of original Welsh-Canadian art. Winning designs will be part of Dave's creation and will be displayed at the West Coast Eisteddfod Welsh-American Arts festival in Los Angeles. Submit yours and be part of Welsh Arts and Welsh Culture at this year's West Coast Eisteddfod!

Why Lovespoons?

2011-03-16T22:24:00.000-07:00

Recently I was asked why we carve a lovespoon each year for the West Coast Eisteddfod. This wasn't a cheeky 'what-the-hell-do-you-want-to-go-and-do-that-for' question, but a genuine question from a non-Welsh viewer who had stumbled across the blog by accident and was curious about the custom.

So for those who aren't really familiar with the tradition and those who have been bullshitted by all the website souvenir sites, here's the lovespoon story in a very brief nutshell.

Lovespoons are but one of several wooden romantic tokens which enjoyed their heyday during the period of approximately 1650-1900. Each was carved as a gift by a lovestruck young man and would have been presented to the girl (or in some cases, girls) who had captured their hearts. The craft flourished throughout Europe but today, is only practiced in a meaningful way by the Welsh.

Nobody knows for sure where lovespoon carving originated, but strong traditions developed in Wales, Sweden and Norway and examples have been collected from most European countries. The oldest Welsh spoon was created in 1667 and is housed in the collection of the National History Museum of Wales at St Fagans near Cardiff. A German spoon dated 1664 is housed in the collections of the German National Museum in Nuremburg, and as far as I have been able to tell, is the oldest dated lovespoon currently known. It is unlikely that the custom dates back much further than the early 1600's despite wonderfully romantic theories of the custom having a direct link with the Celts of yore. Most of the romantic wood tokens originated around the same period and both the social and economic situation of earlier times make it unlikely they date back much before 1600.

In Scandinavia the custom seemed to be for the spoons to be a bit more conservative in design than the Welsh spoons. Many were quite simply carved and were given as 'feeler gifts' by young men who wanted to check the lay of the land and see what the reaction would be from one or more girl. These spoons were often less elaborately carved than spoons given when the young man was more certain of his passion and expected a more positive response from the young lady of his fancy.

It has been suggested that acceptance of a lovespoon was a betrothal promise, but this has never been proven and it is far more likely that acceptance of the spoon merely indicated mutual interest and a 'green light' for a courtship to begin.

Unlike the Welsh, the Scandinavian tradition also embraced the idea of 'Wedding spoons.' Strictly speaking, these are not lovespoons in the tightest definition of the tradition as they were only brought out once the romance had been finalized by the wedding. In Norway, an elaborate double bowled spoon connected by a long length of chain link was used when the Wedding Couple ate their first meal together, symbolizing the wife's new status as married woman and housewife.

In Sweden, the wedding spoon's purpose was often much less serious and a number of 'joke spoons' were developed for use by the couple at their festivities. The reversed bowls found on many of the spoons would have made it difficult for the couple to eat together and would have made for a comical spectacle....especially with the wedding party likely being well fuelled by alcoholic beverages!

The Welsh lovespoon has always been the more exuberant cousin to the European spoons though. Generally the Welsh spoons were much less conservative in design and embraced a much wider variety of symbols. Although it is unlikely that the spoons could have been 'read like a book' by the mostly illiterate rural folk who gave and received them, it is likely that many symbols would have been well known and would have had meaning. Hearts for love, diamonds for prosperity, keys and locks to indicate security or a heart held captive were all easily understood and as spoon carving developed, more symbols would have likely been created. Modern Welsh lovespoon carving has added a variety of 'traditional' symbols which were unknown on historical examples.....but that is tradition....always in change!

Today, handcarved lovespoons are heirloom quality gifts which are given at engagements, weddings, anniversaries and a host of other occasions where a gift of deep sentiment is required. Although the symbolism may have changed throughout the years, the relevance of a lovingly carved spoon given with sentimental or romantic intent is as strong as ever. As a symbol of Wales and the warmth and passion of the Welsh people, it would be pretty hard to find a more iconic tradition than the lovespoon. So THAT is why we carve one each year.

Underway!

2011-03-06T18:23:00.000-08:00

Help design this year's spoon here!

I've started carving the 2011 West Coast Eisteddfod Spoon Mark III. The birch is gorgeous and cuts like butter, so I am confident that some of the crazy ideas I have for this spoon will work out. I like to shape the bowl first as it requires some heavy cutting, so if things go wrong at this stage and there is a breakage, its not such a big deal...not that there wouldn't be some fairly heavy duty swearing going on!!

I've been using my Preferred Edge bent knife which was custom made for me by Mike Komick just weeks before he suddenly passed away. It is a glorious little knife which I never tire of using, but it always reminds me how much I am going to miss Mike's remarkable skill with metal! As you can see, I glue the pattern directly to the piece I am working on. This keeps my cuts good and accurate and also keeps the wood nice and clean.

With the heart-shaped bowl roughed out, I am able to start on some of the nearby Celtic knotwork. I use a scroll saw to do the rough cuts and then utilize my very small (but wickedly sharp) straight knife to carve the details. With a wood as accommodating as birch, the knotwork generally comes out crisply right off the knife and very little 'clean up' work is necessary.

I've also started to frame in the first of the 3 circles which will be designed by one of the winners of our Design the Spoon Competition. I do hope that I can encourage you to have a crack at it! Even if you don't consider yourself an artist, submit an idea or two or three! Whether it is a drawing, a photo, written word or a vague idea...send it in and it might wind up on this year's spoon! The West Coast Eisteddfod is a celebration of the 'forgotten Celts' living here in North America and this little spoon is part of that. It says 'the Welsh are here' but you don't have to be Welsh to join in our fun! Anyone and everyone are welcome to contribute ideas and I look forward to seeing them!

If you are too shy or simply can't be arsed, why not consider donating a couple of bucks to the Eisteddfod instead. You could win the finished spoon for your generosity!!

Contest and Now, Onto The Spoon

2011-02-25T19:40:00.000-08:00

Whether from poor grammar or inadequate planning, my last blog about the Eisteddfod spoon competition managed to confuse a number of people. So before I carry on too much further, I thought I would try to clarify the contest rules a bit. Basically, we are looking for assistance designing the three circular sections of the spoon. Everyone and anyone is welcome to enter a design, be it drawing, photo or text. Enter as many ideas as you like, but be aware that we will only accept one entry per person for the final 'vote' round of judging. It has been brought to our attention that some contestants may design three cohesive sections and only picking one will detract from their overall artistic statement. While we agree that is a possibility, we have decided that we would rather have three individual winners rather than a single winner so that we can encompass as wide a variety of ideas as possible. Hopefully, that decision will not offend anyone and will encourage those who may feel they only have a single idea to contribute their ideas!

Our main hope is that our little 'seat of the pants' contest will inspire some idea contributions and will raise a bit of interest in both the Eisteddfod and in the lovespoon we use to generate donations.

So scribble down your poems, doodles or creative masterworks and be part of the fun!

Now onto the spoon....

I have selected another beautiful piece of spalted birch for this year's spoon. Laura and I used a similar piece cut from the same tree for last year's spoon and we were delighted with the way it carved and by it's beautiful grain and colour. I think the design for Eisteddfod Spoon Mark III will work beautifully with this piece of timber and I am very excited to get underway!
If you have followed the creation of the last two Eisteddfod spoons, you will already know the spoon's fundraising purpose. If you are new to this blog, the spoon we are designing and carving here will be the draw prize for those who donate to this year's Eisteddfod which will be held for the first time in Los Angeles. Every dollar donated equals one ticket for the final draw....so we encourage you to make the laws of probability work in your favour by donating as much as you can!!!
So please join in our design competition and/or donate a few bucks toward helping us stage the Third Annual West Coast Eisteddfod.

Contest On!

2011-02-16T12:27:00.000-08:00

Well, no sooner had we announced the contest to help design this year's Eisteddfod spoon, the ideas came flooding in! We're very excited to get such a positive response and we look forward to seeing lots more excellent ideas!

In case you missed it last week, here is the design for the spoon:

We'll be looking for 3 designs to fit the blank circular sections and are open to any and all ideas at this point. As mentioned earlier, you don't need to be an AmeriCymru member or have the artistic capabilities of a Rembrandt...you just need a desire to have some fun. Scribble down your best ideas and post them as comments at one of three locations:

Dave Western's Blog
AmeriCymru members
Facebook members

You may enter as many ideas as you like but only one design idea per person will make it to the final poll.

The contest is open now and will close for entries on March 31 so you have chance to ammend, improve or re-do your entries you may have already sent or if you think of something better in the six weeks! The final poll to choose three designs will be up on all three sites for one month from April 1st and will close April 30. There are no restrictions to what you can enter -- pictures, photos, poems, whatever floats your boat! Just remember that it has to fit in a 2" inch diameter circle and I have to have a fighting chance of rendering it in wood. So photos of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling or the unedited text of Beowulf likely won't make the cut!! If you are Welsh or have Welsh ancestry, let your pride have free reign, if you aren't Welsh, pretend you are! Everybody is welcome to enter, we don't care if you are kids, grandparents, miserable cranks, wickedly irreverent humourists, capitalists, socialists, fat, thin, incredibly witty, ploddingly dull, even if you are English!! So go on, give it a go and don't use the old 'I can't draw' and 'I don't have the imagination for this kind of thing' routines, because we've already taken those....THAT'S why we're getting YOU to do the work for us!!!

Winners will be selected by public vote during the month of April. Visitors to the AmeriCymru website will be free to vote for their three favourites from 10 possibilities picked by a selection committee comprised of Ceri, Gaabi, Dave and Lorin. The selection possibilities will be chosen after a rigorous protocol of alcohol consumption, intense brawling, arguing and name-calling, in the Welsh tradition, has taken place within the committee.

We even have prizes!!! Fox Chapel Publishing have generously donated three copies of "The Fine Art of Lovespoon Carving" to be awarded for the three winning designs. As a bonus, you will also enjoy the unstinting praise and admiration of all who behold your champion design when they are announced on May 1!

Have fun and be part of the 2011 West Coast Eisteddfod!!! But please remember that the spoon's purpose is to help raise donations to support our event. Please see your way to helping with a donation and you could be the one who wins it!!

Good things DO happen in threes!

2011-02-11T11:49:00.000-08:00

Well after the downer tone of my recent blog, I am happy to say that all is well again in the lovespoon world and that good things have happened in threes....which makes a very welcome change from the usual 'bad things in threes' that seem so much more common.

First, I am delighted to say that the unpaid lovespoon situation has been happily resolved! The cheque has arrived, my 100% record is back on track and my faith in humanity has been restored! So although the situation definitely had some down moments, in the end it has all worked out.

Next, I am thrilled that my "Legend of Taliesin" lovespoon is now on display at the National History Museum of Wales at St Fagans near Cardiff. For me it is an absolute thrill to have a piece of my art on display in the very institution which inspired my passion many, many, many years ago! St Fagans, as it is more commonly known, is a true gem in the Welsh crown and is a world class museum of history and culture. Their collection of historical lovespoons is unrivalled and I feel very honoured to have my work be a small part of it. I also want to congratulate fellow carvers Mike Davies and Sion Llewellyn whose spoons are also on display!

Finally, my book publisher, Fox Chapel Publishing, have generously offered three copies of my book to the eventual winners of our upcoming Left Coast Eisteddfod "Help design the lovespoon" competition!! This year we will be soliciting help to design the lovespoon which we use as a draw prize incentive to help raise funds in support of our event!

This year we want YOU, yes, YOU, to help us design the 2011 West Coast Eisteddfod lovespoon. As you can see on this year's spoon sketch, below, three circular spaces have been left blank and it is our hope that they will be filled in by supporters of our Eisteddfod.

We welcome Americymru members, Welsh society members, school kids, enthusiastic artists and poets, lovespoon carver wannabies, people who have no connection to Wales at all but wouldn't mind having their idea included on our lovespoon... in short, anyone who wants to have a bash at it!! Enter one, two, three or more ideas, we're open to anything and everything! Not an artist? No big deal. Write a very brief poem (but keep in mind, these circles are only 2 inches in diameter, so I can't fit a sonnet in there!!) make a collage, write a description of your idea, like I said, we're game for anything!!

Really keen artists among you may have noticed that the circles are placed at the dragon's heart, wings and feet, so there's some more idea fodder!!

We'll be releasing full contest details very soon, but in the meantime, let your design imaginations run wild!

2011 West Coast Eisteddfod

2011-02-01T21:05:00.000-08:00

The 2011 West Coast Eisteddfod is gearing up now and it's time for another spoon! An announcement of this year's spoon will be made here shortly.

This year's West Coast Eisteddfod will be held in Los Angeles, California in parntership with Lorin Morgan-Richards of A Raven Above Press and announcements who will be performing and what other activities will take place will be made on the events page there and on AmeriCymru as they're added.

To support the event and help bring Welsh art and artists to Los Angeles, click on the donation button in the right-hand column and make a donation or buy some tickets to win this year's spooon, or for the next month you can contribute to the event kickstart campaign.

Here's this year's event poster and you can download it if you like.

Watch this space for a new spoon announcement soon!

Ripped Off!!!

2011-01-21T04:00:00.000-08:00

I have been very fortunate over the ten years I have been carving lovespoons professionally.

I have met hundreds of remarkable people, heard their stories and worked with them to create heirloom quality artworks that they will cherish for many, many years. I consider it the most rewarding work I have ever done and am thrilled to have a job that I can't wait to get at when I wake up every morning.

Sadly, I have just been ripped off for the very first time. That is to say, I have just had a client accept her spoon but not bother to pay me for it. I confess, I have been expecting it would happen eventually. Human nature being what it is, the laws of averages dictates that it was only a matter of time until I ran into this kind of person... even if I have been extremely lucky so far.

Now that it has happened I find myself experiencing three distinct things: Disappointment, that this one client is able to darken my view of humanity with her one stupid and selfish act; Anger, that she has has taken a piece of my art and forced me to accept a financial loss that I can ill-afford;
Curiosity, as I wonder at the mindset of a person who can commission a romantic token like the lovespoon and then steal it!!! Nothing says LOVE quite like not paying for something!! Does she enjoy looking at it knowing how she acquired it? Will she take delight in knowing she has ripped me off? Will it make her happy to know that she has effectively shat all over a really lovely tradition and that her spoon is now completely meaningless? Only she has the answers to that.

In the meantime, I'll carry on doing what I do. I will bring joy to more people, I will make beautiful things, I will revel in this tradition I am so very lucky to be part of.

And down there in Austin Texas, she will be a miserable thief.

And the Winner is......

2010-10-19T13:38:00.000-07:00

Well, here it is!!! The official announcement from the Left Coast Eisteddfod!
Both Laura and I would like to send our congratulations to Kathy and we hope the lovespoon brings her many, many years of pleasure!
Cheers! Dave and Laura

The winner for the 2010 Left Coast Eisteddfod Lovespoon is Kathy Bushman of Milwaukie, Oregon!

Kathy is an AmeriCymru member and purchased her winning ticket at this year's Night of the Living Bards event in Portland, Oregon. "I've never won anything in my life and this is so beautiful, I can't believe it's mine! Thank you so much and thank you so much to the artists who made this!"

This is the second year for the Left Coast Eisteddfod and the Left Coast Eisteddfod Lovespoon, a custom started by artist David Western of British Columbia, who was joined this year by artist Laura Jenkins-Gorun, of Ohio. David has been a well-known lovespoon carver for many years, his work has been commissioned all over the world and appears in museum collections, including St. Fagans in Wales, he teaches carving and is the author of Fine Art of Carving Lovespoons.

We very gratefully thank David and Laura for their very great contribution to the Left Coast Eisteddfod, for their hard work and their incredible, incomparable art.

This year's spoon:

Read more: http://americymru.ning.com/profiles/blogs/portland-2010-lovespoonand-the?xg_source=activity#ixzz12q6pn2zG

2010 Lovespoon Winner To Be Announced at Night of the Living Bards live event

2010-10-05T18:45:00.000-07:00

The winner of this year's incredible Left Coast Eisteddfod Lovespoon will be chosen and announced at our live event in Portland, Oregon, "Night of the Living Bards," which will be streamed live, online through the skilled technical magic of Ty Bach Productions
The live event will include the first western hemisphere screening of "Otherworld"; performances by California's premier acoustic Tom Jones cover band, Sex Bomb, and Portland Oregon's zero emissions harpist, Halley Weaver; live poetry and storytelling competitions and appearances by authors Niall Griffiths, Chris Keil, Peter Griffiths and Harrison Solow.
For tickets to the live event, purchase here.
Bards Poster

Letting go...

2010-09-28T20:28:00.001-07:00

When I finish a spoon and show it to people, they often say "that's a keeper" and they don't understand how I can let go. I have to admit - with other art forms, I have felt that way. But with lovespoons, I never really have. The whole point of a lovespoon is to give it away. Now, I wouldn't mind being given a lovespoon that was created for me, but I have never really regretted parting with any of the spoons I've created. Usually, while the oil and wax are drying, I have enough time to enjoy the spoon, and I usually try to take some good pictures, too. There was one time when I sold a spoon very shortly after finishing it, and I did miss it a little. There was a simple solution, though: I made another similar spoon, and that appeased my need to enjoy the first spoon a little more. Now, this Portland Eisteddfod spoon is certainly one of the most special spoons I've had to part with, and I must say, I am excited to see it raffled off! There's not much time left to make your donation for your chances to win the spoon! I wonder how Dave feels when he has to part with a spoon that he loves...
- Laura
Laura brings up a very good point about 'letting go' of the spoons when they are completed. Sometimes it is a hard thing to watch them disappear into bubble wrap and cardboard as they are prepared for voyages to new homes, but it is always comforting to know how much they will be appreciated and to know that many will become treasured family heirlooms. Our lovespoons aren't like the gift-shop bric-a-brac that clutters the internet; they are deeply personal and very meaningful artworks which have tremendous relevance to the people who commission and receive them. As much as I might miss my lovespoons when they leave, I am proud to know that I have been granted permission to be part of my client's lives and I have made something that they will cherish.
The Eisteddfod spoon has given Laura and I the opportunity to work together and share our ideas and techniques. With it, we have helped a cause we believe in and we hope it will bring great pleasure to its lucky winner! So how could we feel badly about that?
If you haven't sent a couple of bucks to the Left Coast Eisteddfod, I urge you to get in under the wire and make sure you are in the running to win this spoon!
-Dave

Last year's spoon:

This year's spoon:

Time running out to win the Eisteddfod Spoon!!!

2010-09-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

Laura and I have finished the Left Coast Eisteddfod spoon for 2010 and it is now safe and sound in Portland OR awaiting its new owner. Remember that every donation to the LCE equals an opportunity to win this wonderful lovespoon!! Just so everyone can see where and how this spoon came about, we have done a 'review' posting with some select photos of the lovespoon carving process. We hope you'll enjoy this quick snapshot of the project and wish everyone who has donated the very best luck winning it!!

For me, the opportunity to collaborate with a wonderful carver like Laura has been tremendous. The opportunity to create this lovespoon with her and to see it evolve through its many initial ideas to the final lovely spoon has been a terrific change from my usual solitary way of carving. I would really like to thank Laura both for agreeing to carve this spoon with me and for the exceptional amount of time, energy and effort she gave to the project! The Left Coast Eisteddfod has been very fortunate to have her on board!

Cheers and good luck!! Dave

This really has been a fun project, and great opportunity! I couldn't have asked for a better person to partner with on a project like this - it's truly been a pleasure from beginning to end. Thanks, Dave, for bringing me along on this adventure! Now, let's review how this spoon came to be...
- Laura

Finished!

2010-09-12T17:51:00.000-07:00

I am a little excited today because this week, I get to report that the spoon is finished. Last week, I'd begun the sanding. Through the week, I filed, and sanded, and sanded, and filed, and sanded, and sanded some more. Front, back, nooks, crannies.... lots of filing and sanding. I like to sand to rather a high polish before beginning the oil & wax process, so I sanded to 3200 grit. I don't know why I like to go to such a high grit - the sheen begins to appear at 600. But, I never seem to be able to stop there. Overkill, I am sure. Anyway, the spoon was very pretty, and quite whitish after all this sanding. I went over Dave's part, too, although his part was already to a nice sheen. Then, I put on the first coat of Danish oil (2nd coat for Dave's part), and all the pretty modeling and color of the grain began to appear. What a beautiful piece of wood this is! Seeing the first coat of oil is one of my favorite parts of the whole process. It's very dramatic for a few moments, and then, you sit there wondering - is it really almost done? Hmm. Pretty. :)
I followed with another 3 coats of oil over the next 2 days, drying about half a day between each coat. I also sanded once again before the last coat of oil. The spoon now has a very soft, polished finish. For the last couple days of the week, I let the oil finish drying. Then, this morning, it was time for the wax. Having sanded it so smooth, the wax polished up very nicely with a soft cloth. I use a natural beeswax polish by Briwax. I had to wax it in sections, so the wax wouldn't harden too much to polish off. Finally, though, I was done. Now, the spoon sits before me, all finished, and again, I wonder to myself - is it really done? But, I stare and stare at it, and yes, it is done.

The finishing begins...

2010-09-05T12:59:00.000-07:00

Well, I believe I'm done with the rough carving of the rest of the spoon. That's not to say that all the carving is done, though - as I start the sanding, I've already found a few spots where I hadn't carved quite to the depth I'd intended. As I encounter those spots, I simply make a few more chips. From here on out, though, I think it will mostly be dust. Here's what the whole spoon looks like at the moment: . The part I did still isn't oiled, and having begun the sanding phase, the grain is up, so it probably looks a little washed out. But you can see the beginning of the overall look.

This week, there was a little bit of carving I still did, mostly finishing up the back, fine-tuning around the flowers and leaves, and still more work on the eagle. I was trying to make the beak hook a little more at the end, but I didn't have a lot of room left to make a hook. Exaggerating that hook at the end would have been nice - Dave reminded me that in a lot of the Northwest art, they do that, and I do think that's very effective, but I didn't have room on this eagle. I trust people will be able to recognize that this is an eagle, nonetheless. Another very eagle-y feature is that division between the white head feathers and the dark body feathers. Obviously, I won't be making different colors, so I tried to make it look like the head feathers overlap the body feathers. I am pretty satisfied with the effect here. More shallow relief. :)

Finally, I started sanding, or, to be more correct, filing. I began cleaning up quite a lot of nooks and crannies with my trusty needle files. I think there are two main advantages of needle files vs. sandpaper. Firstly, files work in the nooks and crannies because they are solid, not paper. Second, files don't leave grit that can dull your blades in case you carve any more. In the broader areas, though, where I'm sure I'm done carving, and I need to smooth away all my chisel marks, sandpaper does work fast and well. On most spoons, I tend to spend almost as much time sanding as I do carving. When there are lots of details like on this spoon, the filing and sanding is quite a challenge. So, Here is as far as I've come this week - mostly just on the front. I expect I will spend most or all of next week filing and sanding, getting to finer grits, preparing for the next step, which will be oil. I am VERY excited for the oil, as the shadows and grain really come alive with the oil.

It's nice to be getting into the final steps! Especially because Americymru's Left Coast Eisteddfod is just a few weeks away! This week, in Portland, the North American Festival of Wales is taking place. If you're in the area, or can get there, be sure to stop in at the Americymru table, along with all the other attractions. Remember, donations to the Left Coast Eisteddfod can be chances to win this spoon!

Bit by bit...

2010-08-29T11:37:00.001-07:00

This week, I was able to spend several hours, picking away at all the various parts of the top of the spoon. I thought I'd focus on a few close-ups of some of those parts in this week's blog. I think I started with the flower. Last week, I'd begun carving the first three petals. This week, I've begun carving the next three, and the back. I think I have the petals to the depth I want - cupped around the trumpet of the daffodil. It's not as long as a typical daffodil trumpet, but it is definitely a trumpet now, and the thin walls of the trumpet still have some strength. I know I am a sucker for making things delicate, but only when it helps the design. Even I consider how protected delicate parts may be.

Later, I worked a bit on the eagle. I felt like he wasn't looking as "eagle-y" as he should. I think that furrowed brow is one of the defining features of an eagle, so I trimmed a bit from the top of the beak, and I think I managed to emphasise the furrowed brow now. What do you think? I also began to put some shape to the top edge of the wing. Now, most of the front was rough-carved, so I turned to the back. *sigh*.

I looked at the back, and thought to myself, "there is a lot of carving to do here!" Well, this time I started with the vines, then moved on to the knot. You've probably already noticed how my initial carving is quite rough, leaving a lot of flat planes. I think this is partly the way I carve, and partly a result of some limitations of the grain of the wood. I know we've talked about how this wood carves nicely - buttery. It doesn't do that in every direction, though. No wood does. With all the different parts of this spoon, the approach with even small tools can be limited, so I might need to go somewhat against the grain. Against the grain, or across the grain, you have to be very tender and careful not to let the wood chip or tear. I also have to be sure that after my cut, I don't let my tool go into another part next to the part I'm carving. Mostly, it takes small tools, a careful hand, and lots of time. I find myself resorting to my micro skew and chisel to get into some parts. . I think I am rambling a little bit, here... so I'll stop about all that. It'll all get cleaned up in later steps.

I worked a bit more on all the parts of the back - the vines, the back of the "frame", and then, finally, on to the back of the eagle. . I started rounding out the top, shaping the wrap-around wing a bit more, in relation to the body... I think It's looking a little more like an eagle from the back, too. I also started shaving away a bit more depth into the frame. The thing about the frame is, it's meant to be a stable, relatively flat part, with everything else wrapping around it. The frame itself shouldn't look like it's "weaving." It will have to, at least a little bit - that's the nature of shallow relief, but I need to make every effort to make it look like it's not weaving. It looks a little bumpy, but I am envisioning when things are smoothed out, and I think this shallow relief thing is coming into shape.

Well, that was everything you could have wanted to know, and probably lots more, about this week's progress. Hopefully next week I'll get beyond this rough stuff, and we'll REALLY see it starting to take shape!

A slow week...

2010-08-23T15:43:00.000-07:00

Well, this past week, I didn't have a lot of time. I was selling my spoons at a Civil War Reenactment over the weekend, so spent most of last week getting ready for that. I did, however, get to work a little on our Eisteddfod spoon. When I sat down to write this blog, though, I realized, I don't really have a lot to show this week. So, this may be a little short, but here's what I did...
Mostly, I spent a few hours making deeper cuts where needed on the front, and starting to work on my daffodil. I'm not sure if the little bit more depth shows up in this picture, but, I assure you, there's a little bit more depth. I also made some progress on the daffodil - if you look at a daffodil, you'll notice that the six petals overlap a bit. Since this is the front-facing daffodil, and daffodils have trumpets, I have to bring the center of the petals down to as low a depth as I can. So, the petals will end up forming sort of a cup, just like you'd see on a real daffodil. That's the plan, anyway. I'm using tiny chisels and gouges to get in there, so it is a slow process, and has quite a bit more to come.

Then, I felt like a change, so I started cutting the lines into the back. . I don't think the left part of the frame looks right in the back, so I will re-draw that. I can do that, because the eagle wraps around the frame, so the frame will have to be carved to depth, which will erase the previous line I drew and carved. As you see, it's the same process, piece by piece. There are still lots of chips to take away. I guess that's what the process is all about.... take away the chips until they are all gone and what's left is the spoon. :) So, while I'm removing chips, you might consider making a donation to the Left Coast Eisteddfod to get some chances to win the finished spoon!

Laura's turn!

2010-08-15T18:07:00.001-07:00

Well, when the spoon arrived in the mail, my husband and I were on our way out. So, naturally, my husband said, "Well? let's open it up!" So, we carefully cut tape and removed layers and layers of bubble wrap, to arrive at this lovely spoon. I held it in my hands, and we both admired Dave's carving for a few minutes, and then we went on our way, only a little behind schedule. :)

One of the things about the spoon, with its lovely gentle arc near the bowls, and its convex back, setting it on a flat surface would leave it vulnerable to breaking with any pressure placed on its front... pressure like, oh, I don't know... carving? So, I got out a piece of squishy cloth, folded up, and placed it underneath for support and stability. I'll use that fabric any time I'm carving it on a table. Now that I see the spoon, it is bigger than most of my spoons have been, but it's not SO big. I can carve at a small portable table I have. My workbench still isn't finished, and it looks like I won't need it, after all. My dogs will be happy that I will stay in the room with them.

But I digress.... For the first day or so, I was studying the spoon, trying to figure out any challenges and such. What is the major immediate challenge? Where to begin! Seeing as how I'd never worked on a spoon that someone else had already partially completed, I was a little intimidated about beginning. I decided to take the harmless approach, and start by drawing out my lines on the back of the spoon. After about another day, my longing to see how the wood carves kicked in, and I began carving grooves along all the lines on the front, and beginning to remove the paper wherever I could. . That's how I generally start - the grooves acting like stop cuts so I don't accidentally chip the wood with my shallow cuts. Then, I start with shallow carving of depth, much like Dave. But, again - where to start?! I usually start with parts that intimidate me more. In this case, there are probably two main parts that fit that description: the eagle, and Dave's knotwork. I kind of like knotwork, though, so that's where I started. And, incidentally, I am in love with this birch! It does have a buttery feel, just as Dave promised, but it is still strong, and not brittle. It reminds me of the first piece of cherry I carved (which was much softer than the last piece of cherry I carved!) Again, I digress.... so, I started with shallow cuts in the knotwork, and then went a little deeper, and moved along to the vines and other parts of the spoon.

Then, eventually, I got brave, and began to attack the eagle. One thing that will be especially challenging about the eagle is showing enough depth to make it look like the eagle is wrapped around the upper right part of the spoon, without actually being carved in the round. I usually carve more "in the round", but in this case, that would have resulted in a very heavy eagle perched upon the spoon, which wouldn't feel right at all. Instead, I will be carving the eagle in shallow relief - suggesting depth where there isn't really much depth. Just like everything else, though, I start with very shallow cuts. There's a lot of depth to show in quite a small amount of wood, so I'm especially careful to work on all parts of it, just a little at a time. There's very little margin for error on this eagle, more than any other part I'm doing. You can't see much in these pictures, since I'm still keeping a little on the shallow side, but hopefully you can see it starting to take shape.

Well, that's as far as I am after my first few days with the spoon. I suspect I work at a bit slower speed than Dave, so progress may be harder to see. I hope you're able to see it taking shape, though! As the weeks go by, the Left Coast Eisteddfod is nearing! Remember, each dollar donated can equal a chance at winning the spoon!

THIS is a lovespoon!!!

2010-08-08T06:17:00.000-07:00

With the Left Coast Eisteddfod lovespoon somewhere in the air over the continental USA, I thought I would use the time before Laura gets underway to put out a quick blog on this lovespoon I have just finished carving.
This spoon is the real deal! It would be hard to find a spoon with more love and depth than this one and it has been an honour and a pleasure to carve it. Emotionally, it has also been one of the hardest spoons I have ever done.
This spoon was commissioned by my friend D, who was in the final stages of a hard fight with cancer. It was a fight she knew she wasn't going to win, so she organized her passing with single-minded focus and did all she could to make life easier for her family and friends after she was gone. One of the things she did was to commission this spoon for one of her two best friends. If we are lucky in life, we are successful and happy...if we are really fortunate, we have good friends and a close family and D had both in spades!
For me it was crucial that this spoon focused on the depth of feeling that two friends can have for one another and the remarkable bonding a good friendship brings; a sentiment D very much shared. She wanted something of both herself and her friend M to be present in the spoon design, so we chose flowers to represent them. Among the flowers are a pair of hearts whose meaning needs no elaboration! Beneath the flower a circular ring (symbolizing eternity) is broken by D's all too early passing, but the circle is held together by the eternal Celtic knot within. The written message is reinforced by this knotwork to symbolize a friendship never forgotten.
One of D's top wishes for the spoon was that the sun would be present and the spoon would feel positive, light and affirming. Although the spoon will be given at a time of terrible grief, it's sunny disposition is a direct reflection of D's own bright personality. As the rays emanate from the distant sun, they seem to warm the spoon while also drawing the flowers upward.
The final section of the bowl is the twin heart-shaped bowls which gently merge the two separate handles, just as a good friendship can merge two very different personalities. The knotwork reinforces the idea of eternity and the stems are used as a symbol for the growth of a relationship now cut tragically short.

It was tough-going carving this wonderful spoon. But even though I feel heart-broken at the loss of such a beautiful friend, I also feel tremendous pride that D's powerful message of love and affection can be passed along through a simple wood carving. THIS is what lovespoons are all about and why I love doing them!

Dave is done!

2010-08-01T05:15:00.000-07:00

Well, I think I am just about done. I had a good day yesterday and managed to get most of my part seen to. There might be a couple of little things to tweak or clean up, but I think I have hit that point when 'enough is enough'. I ummed and ahhhed all night about whether or not to put a coat of oil on it for protection etc.. At first I didn't want to because it does make touch up sanding a bit trickier, but I think that the protection it will afford against wear as the spoon is shipped around will be a valid trade-off. I have only used one thinned coat, but that has let me see the grain and if there were any rough sections etc.. I hope Laura is ok with me doing that!!! I should have asked but it was pretty late and I made an executive decision (at least I think that is what they are called).
I had a big chip break off the flower which made me alter my plans in mid-stride, but I more-or-less recovered the situation. The front part of the petals look good, and I managed to shape around the breakage on the back to give the flower section a bit of a curvy feel

Its a cute little flower but I am very interested to see how it stacks up against Laura's daff when she is done. Flowers are her specialty, so hopefully she won't have to do too much tweaking to mine!

Here's a detailed shot showing my section of the spoon completed and with one coat of protective oil. I'm very happy with the little stylized dragon. He's not as literal as last year's spoon, but I think he has a lot of charm. I like the way his body is woven around the frame of the spoon and merges into the knotwork. I'm also very pleased with how the wings turned out, given that they are much smaller than the ones on last year's dragon and so were much trickier to detail.
I've also carved the back of this spoon in pretty good detail so that the dragon is recognizable from both sides and the knotwork will cast nicer shadows when it is hung on the wall. The bowls of the spoons are also nicely rounded now and also give a nice shadow when the spoon is viewed against a backing.
I can't wait for the spoon to get to Laura and to see what she comes up with! This spoon has been quite an interesting challenge. The design aspect was a lot of fun as we thrashed our way through all kinds of ideas and now it is equally interesting to see how two carvers with very different styles will complete a single spoon! It will also be interesting to see how many people are inspired enough by what we are doing to make a donation to the Left Coast Eisteddfod!! Remember every dollar donated equals one chance to win the completed spoon!

Profile...

2010-07-21T15:29:00.000-07:00

I've had a request for some 'profile' shots of the Left Coast Eisteddfod lovespoon. So for any carvers in the crowd or those who are interested in seeing what one of these things looks like from the side. Here is a detail shot of the bowl end of the spoon. Unfortunately it is hard to get a shot which accurately shows the doming of the front face as well as the 'swan-neck' effect of the bowls joining the handle.
Showing the spoon from the bowl end again, this occasionally in focus shot at least gives an idea of the lateral curve this spoon has. This doming seems to really bring Celtic knotwork to life and should help our little dragon and eagle look a bit more vibrant!

For those with a thing for blurry photos, today is your lucky day! This one shows the extent of the doming from the crown end. Not a terribly exciting photo, but I can tell you that getting a spoon curved like this without blowing it up has its challenges!!

Hopefully, some of you are wondering what the hell the spoon is actually shaping up to look like! Well, wonder no more! I've finished the front face of the dragon and the knotwork...I've also finished the daffodil but the camera is acting up so no pics this week. The birch is coming up beautifully with some nice little colour streaks and a good, consistant grain. It is a pleasure to carve!
With the front face done, I have to carefully redraw all the 'over and under' lines for the knotwork on the back face. Care and caution are required here as it is remarkably easy to mess up the lines and make a right-old ballsup of things if even just one gets out of whack!
Some shallow cutting brings up the knotwork and still leaves me an escape route if I make an error and have to change a knot. Having that little bit of extra material to play with can be a lifesaver if there is a mistake made!
With the spoon starting to show its potential, I would like to once again make a plea for donations! The Left Coast Eisteddfod needs your support and in exchange for every dollar you donate, will give you an opportunity to win this spoon.
-Dave

Something to consider...

2010-07-12T11:40:00.000-07:00

I was very excited to see the start Dave has made on the spoon, especially seeing it all cut out. Seeing the blank all cut out is one of my favorite parts of the spoon-making process. It feels like a milestone accomplished. It also means that now is time for carving, which is another favorite part. For me, though, this time I still have to wait! It is making me all twitchy to wait to hold the cut blank in my hand and study how the coloration of the wood is showing up on the design.
While I wait, though, I realize there is something I should consider: my work space.
I know it's a mundane topic, but it's something that needs serious consideration. So, today, I thought I would muse a bit about considerations for a work space.

Dave seems to have a proper workshop, complete with appropriate workspace, and all the right tools and equipment. He has been woodworking for much longer than I have. I, on the other hand, have a very limited workshop, with no proper workbench or carving space. I'm workin' on it, though....

Meanwhile, this is my normal workspace, for the most part:
I am usually, however, working on spoons 12" or less. That is quite manageable in an armchair. This spoon, on the other hand, is 17" long, and I suspect it may be less manageable in an armchair. I'll need to decide on a more proper workspace - I'm considering building the work bench I've been meaning to build for over a year. We'll see.

So, first, the workspace has to "fit" the item being carved, keeping both the item AND you safe. You need to be able to move your elbows and other parts of your body freely around the piece, as necessary. You also need room to keep your tools handy.

Why not use the dining room table?
Second consideration: Things can happen with tools - so I don't let them anywhere near furniture I don't care to get nicks and scrapes, etc.. Well, I really like my dining room table. I think it was built by my Great Grandfather, from a walnut tree that was in their yard. So, dining room table is out.

Third consideration: what happens with all the wood chips? Well, they fall on me or the table, and then probably onto the floor. So wherever I choose, I need to be able to sweep up the chips, or leave them (like when I carve outside). I also need to live with the few rogue chips that will remain between cushions in my chair, or in some other corner of the room until I do the super-thorough sweep.

Fourth consideration: The spoon needs a safe place when I'm not working on it. A workbench (in a room where my dogs are not allowed - like my workshop in the basement) would be a good place for that. So... I think I probably should get building soon! I also tend to hang in-progress spoons on a pegboard in the same room as my armchair. Storage just requires that nothing is set on top of the spoon (or pushes it around), and no dogs can get to it.

These are the main considerations I'm making, at any rate.
- Laura

In Memoriam

2010-07-05T16:36:00.001-07:00

Many of the woodcarvers who read this blog will have no doubt noticed the Preferred Edge Tool Company advertisement which has run on the sidebar of this blog for the last two years. Owned and operated by master metalcraftsman Mike Komick, Preferred Edge carving knives are the tools of choice for legions of woodcarvers throughout the world and I can think of no finer bent-bladed knives than those made by Mike. Sadly, Mike passed away quite unexpectedly this last weekend.

I am both shocked and deeply saddened by his passing and I know that all in the carving community who knew Mike will feel the same way. A larger than life personality, Mike always had time to discuss tools and carving and was constantly looking for ways to innovate and improve upon the tools we carvers use.

It is a tragic loss for Mike's family that he has left us and I send them my heart-felt condolences. It is also an enormous loss to the carving community who will no longer benefit from his remarkable craftsmanship.
I feel extremely fortunate to have made Mike's acquaintance and will treasure the tools he has made for me over the years.

Cutting complete

2010-07-01T20:14:00.001-07:00

I've finished all the scroll sawing on the Left Coast Eisteddfod spoon Mark II and it is shaping up really nicely! The top section looks much more elegant now the excess wood has been removed and it's given me a clearer idea of what Laura and I have to work with (and against). Unfortunately the paper is obscuring the lovely figure of the birch wood, but the nice thing is it will all start revealing itself as we start carving. Sort of like a little burlesque show for wood weirdos!!! Anyway, I'm looking forward to finishing my part of the spoon so that Laura can start work on this top area.

Here's a close up of the eagle and daffodil section that will mostly be Laura's terrain. We have agreed that I will do one of the daffs and Laura will do the top section of the knots so that our hands (and our styles of working) are present in both sections of the spoon. The pressure will be on me to pull off a nice job on my daff since flowers are one of Laura's specialties! So I'll try to do an over-the-top job on my part of the Celtic knotwork and throw a bit of pressure back the other way!
We're getting close to the really fun part of the project when the carving gets exciting and the spoon really takes shape...stay tuned!
-Dave

Carving the Dragon

2010-06-24T04:39:00.000-07:00

After the sawing last week its time to start shaping the handle a bit. I've got the bowls roughed out and am satisfied they will look good so I'm starting to shape the 'overs and unders' of the knotwork. With this type of knotwork it is remarkably easy to get discombobulated and screw up the sequence, so I always go over everything carefully and just cut shallow cuts. Once I am satisfied that things are going as they should, I deepen the cuts and bring things to life a bit more.

This shows where we are at once I've started digging in a bit deeper. This is a fun part of the process because although things are still pretty rough, you can start to see the spoon taking shape and you can get a good idea of what it is going to look like finished. I've also started to shape the dragons wings a bit and have taken a few exploratory cuts. I want the wings to have a bit of a curve in each segment rather than simply being flat plains.

To achieve this, I will use a bent knife (I could also use a gouge here) and I work my way across the wing one segment at a time. I'm careful here to work from the top segment to the bottom...that way I can always work my 'ramps' into thick stock on the next segment. If I work from the bottom segment up, I would be constantly in danger of chipping the finished segment in front of my knife. A simple trick but of course it had to be learned the hard way with a couple of chipped wings... the first time I didn't believe it, the second time I never thought I would make the same mistake again and then after the third time, the light went on. Apparantly I'm the dull knife in the drawer here!!

This little close-up shows the roughly shaped wings and the gentle curve I've worked into each segment. The birch we are using is carving really well... which is a huge relief since I promised Laura it would!

The last pic shows where we are currently at with the rough shaping of the bottom section. I'm happy with how it is all taking shape and will next finish sawing the top section of the spoon. Until then, I hope this little peek at the developing spoon will persuade you to drop a dollar or two into the Left Coast Eisteddfod's little tin cup. You could be the one making off with this spoon after the big draw in October!!

- Dave

Into the wood...

2010-06-17T05:59:00.000-07:00

With the preliminaries all out of the way, it is time to glue the pattern to the domed blank and get hacking!
By gluing the pattern straight on to the workpiece, I can save myself many tedious hours of transferring lines or tracing onto carbon paper that never sits still. The pattern guides the saw guides with great accuracy and in some woods keeps the top of the cut from getting ragged. All in all, it is a great method for ensuring the design gets rendered onto the wood with the greatest accuracy.

I generally scroll away the outer waste first. This lightens up the piece substantially and lets me see more clearly how the spoon is going to look. Some like to cut the inside away first so that they can keep the greatest strength in the wood, but to be perfectly honest, I have never noticed that one method is any better than the other.

I find scrollsawing is a love/hate type of job. Some days I really enjoy the zen state you can get into as you simply follow lines for hours on end...other days I could go up the wall with the monotony and drudgery of it all. I'd love to be able to say that its all zen and focused energy as I saw, but usually I am cursing myself for putting so much bloody knotwork into the design and wishing I was just doing some chip carving instead! On this spoon, I am going to saw about half the design out and then take a nice break and do some carving. That way there will be something to write about and I won't be an ill-tempered little chappie! This picture shows how things are taking shape nicely and how the neat lines of the photocopy really help to guide the saw blade.

Before I get into the knot carving, I like to shape the spoon bowls. As this is often an area of 'energetic' carving, I rather get it done first in case there is a breakage. That way, I won't have invested too much time in the piece before I have to go back to square one. This piece is going to have nice, swooping bowls and a swan neck section joining the bowls to the handle. I use a bandsaw for this operation and make sure to keep my hands well out of the way!

Here's a close-up showing the detail I am after. Later, the back of the spoon will be thinned away to exaggerate this 'swan-neck' effect. But for now, it is a good guide to show me where the bowls are going and where the handle will swoop down to join them.

With all the roughing done, I like to shape out the spoon hollows and to this I use a custom made bent knife. Hand-made for me by Mike Komick at Preferred Edge Tools, this knife is a wonder tool!! I have replaced dozens of gouges with 3 or 4 bent knives and will use this knife to do any cutting where a convex or concave surface is required. Much faster, cleaner and quieter than all the power tool attachments I have ever seen, this is a remarkably swift and invigourating way to cut a spoon bowl!

I don't completely finish off the bowls as there is a long way to go with the carving and it is possible to ding or otherwise damage the bowl a bit. Having a bit of 'play room' should something unfortunate befall us makes life a lot more pleasant. Next week I will start to tidy up the knotwork and will go to work on the little dragon who is appearing just above the bowls.

In the meantime, I hope that you will consider donating to the Left Coast Eisteddfod and that your donation will win you this spoon when Laura and I have finished it! Remember every dollar gives you a shot at this lovely spoon, so the more you donate, the better your chances!
-Dave

Rough cutting the blank

2010-06-09T17:38:00.001-07:00

Last night I blew up our final sketch to full size and discovered our little dragon was, indeed little. Somehow in the email back and forths he had lost a measure of his grandure; indeed the entire drawing had somehow lost some of its width. To be clever, I redrew it and then, in the one sensible move of my day, forwarded it to Laura for her approval. She found a good half dozen errors I had made and with the resigned tone a teacher gets when she wants to tell her student he is an idiot but is far too professional to actually say it, simply told me that she would redraw it for me. With the job properly done, I headed back to the photocopier, taking my little copy off to check against our selected wood. As you can see, this piece of birch shows some real prospects but I wanted to make sure that I located the spoon to maximize the grain and figure.
I next roughly bandsaw the piece, being careful to avoid the knot which would have fallen into Laura's area of the spoon and would likely have earned me a thrashing had I included it. I did make an effort to capture as much of the spalting and swirling grain as I could though.

With the rough blank formed, I want to slightly dome the surface of the piece to add more visual 'zip' to the finished spoon. To do this I rough off some stock with the bandsaw...a dodgy move which should not be undertaken by children...at least not until they've had a few drinks......kidding! This is an extremely efficient and rapid way of removing stock, but it is a dicey move as things can go wrong in a hurry.

No disasters befell me in the bandsawing so I'm able to clean up the jaggy saw marks with a block plane and further refine the domed shape, aiming for a fair and consistant curve, equal on both sides of centre.

With the doming completed, I like to give the piece a good sanding with an orbital sander to make sure the piece is as smooth and tidy as possible. I then give it a light scraping with a cabinet scraper to clean away any embedded abrasive which may have come off the sander disc.

With all that completed, I have a really good idea of how our piece is going to look and am very confident that the spoon is going to be a dandy. Didn't I make exactly the same comment about last year's spoon too? Well, say what you like about my writing skills or my carving abilities...I DO have a good eye for a nice bit of wood!!

Before I sign off, I thought I would include this little close up shot showing the gentle dome have placed across the top (and which also tilts down a bit toward the crown of the spoon). This also gives a good look at the lovely figure present in this piece. Wooohoooo!!
- Dave

Wooohoooo indeed! Well, I feel compelled to add a couple cents here... Dave has done all the hard work, and he does have an eye for a very pretty board, too! Regarding the drawing, though, he is being too hard on himself. Tsk tsk tsk, Dave! I agreed with Dave's assessment that the dragon could use a little more beef, and that the overall design could use some more width/taper. For those of you who haven't tried to make part of a drawing wider before, I am here to tell you, it's no easy task. Moving everything around, ever so slightly, while keeping the integrity and flow of the previous drawing becomes very complicated. Dave did a fantastic job of that, and left only a few lines needing adjustment. I only re-drew it so Dave wouldn't have to. I assure you - I never had any critical thoughts towards Dave. :) Normally, I don't think either of us would have so many versions of a design, but that's the result of designing with two people, 3000 miles apart. At any rate, after Dave's last adjustments to the dragon, our design is REALLY final! Woo-hoo! Oh, and Dave, thank you for avoiding that knot! I'd been afraid of that, but I knew you'd spare me if you could! I can't wait to see more as the cutting and carving proceed!!!
- Laura

Got Wood?

2010-06-03T07:46:00.000-07:00

After much debate, I think Laura and I have settled on a really lovely piece of birch for the Left Coast Eisteddfod spoon. It was almost going to be maple, but when I stumbled across this dramatic piece, I did a quick change of tack, sent Laura the seductive description "buttery to carve", and 'hey, presto', we're in business!
Without doubt, cutting into a piece of wood for the first time and seeing what beauties it reveals is one of my favourite aspects of lovespoon carving. In fact, I would have to say it is second only to hearing my customers say, "Wow, it's beautiful, we love it, here's your cheque!"

Non-wood types think that woodworkers are a crazy breed when they see us swooning over some lump of wood or other, but those in the know realize what a truly magical and magnificent substance wood is. With its infinite colours, figures and textures, nothing offers the visual and tactile variety of wood; and no single material has come close to aiding mankind in his journey from cave dweller to 'civilized' in the way wood has. It has been the thing which has sheltered us, provided heat, clothed us, fed us and enabled us to travel. That we should feel some measure of reverence for it shouldn't be a surprise. That most could give a fiddler's fart about it is, to me, absolutely astonishing.
Take a good look at this piece now it has emerged from the planer. A light touch of spalting (the dark lines caused by fungi) combine with delicate figuring and a soft, feathered grain to create a stunning image which could easily rival an Impressionist masterpiece. Think I'm completely off my trolley and talking a load of crap? Have a good look and maybe you'll see Monet's foggy evening settling over the Thames or any one of dozens of Turner's sunsets. But even if you aren't inclined to be as arty-farty or wax as poetic about it as me...you have to admit, it's a damn-fine looking piece of wood and the spoon Laura and I will make from it will be a stunner!!
Wood is a capricious mistress though and there is never any way to tell if it will bring joy or endless agonies. THAT is the great thing about working with it. Every project you embark on involving wood is an adventure with an unguessable ending. But the one sure thing through it all, is that there is no material more beautiful and wonderful!
- Dave

Since we're musing about our attraction to wood, I thought I would join in! I find wood is one of those things where people are either indifferent to it, or it makes them swoon and drool. I am unquestionably one of the latter. I feel happier in a room trimmed with natural wood, or at least with hardwood floors. I remember having this feeling ever since I was a small child, especially while watching my father or grandfather working with wood.
The way carving reveals unique and unpredictable features of any piece of wood is certainly part of the appeal. But, there's something even more innate than that. Wood has an inviting quality to it that makes you want to touch it, stare at it, study the colors and shapes within it... color, texture, grain - it can be mesmerizing. It also has both a softness and a hardness to it - it can be cut into very intricate shapes - sometimes even bent - yet it still retains a strength and functional quality.
When I carve wood, I love the feel of the blade cutting through it, watching how the wood fibers reshape themselves to make a new surface, and I suppose I feel grateful to have been the one to discover what's beneath the surface with each cut. I like how some woods are flat and opaque, while others have a translucent quality, or sometimes they are a little of both. Regardless of any translucent qualities, many times it is just the colors within each piece of wood that make it look warm or glowing.
Looking at this lovely piece of birch, I look forward to learning its close-up properties, but can already see lots of those lovely, warm colors. It seems to have lots of interesting grain features, including a little bit of spalting. It will be an adventure to learn how it carves, and once we finish the carving and any sanding, it will be yet another adventure to see how the grain and colors come out even more when the oil finish is applied. That is always one of my favorite parts of the process. Dave will have the first bit of the adventure with this piece, but I look forward to my turn in this process! Meanwhile, I will drool along with the rest of you as we see the first steps unfold through Dave's camera!
- Laura

Ta Da!!!

2010-05-26T04:17:00.000-07:00

Laura and I have decided on the final drawing for the Left Coast Eisteddfod Lovespoon and here it is!

We very much hope that you like what you see and that you will be inspired to donate to the cause! Remember - every dollar donated to the Left Coast Eisteddfod can translate to a chance to win this spoon!
This week we both wanted to write sections of the blog, so I am writing in regular font and Laura is in italic... a clear way to know who is saying what and sort of a symbolic way of summing up the main fund-raising purpose of this spoon! We do urge you to become involved with the Eisteddfod, either as a donor or as a participant in one of the many on-line and on-site competitions!
Both Laura and I have very much enjoyed the challenge of designing this year's spoon together and are now looking forward to figuring out how the hell the two of us will carve it! Given that we live several thousand kilometres away from each other, getting all this sorted out will be a bit of a feat! But right now, it is important to explain what this particular spoon is all about and so I'll turn things over to Laura! - Dave

When I talk with people about Welsh Lovespoons, I always emphasize that one of the most important things is the message it sends - the general "rule" is, its symbolism must be meaningful to both the giver and the recipient. So, while it's ideal to have a specific recipient in mind when we design a spoon, we don't always have that. In the case of this Left Coast Eisteddfod spoon, we would assume the recipient will share an interest in Americymru's idea "for Americans (and others!) of Welsh descent to celebrate their heritage and deepen their knowledge of the rich fund of Welsh History, Folklore and Legend." Throughout the design process, we've been thinking of this, along with the theme of "two" and the aim to represent both carvers, and our cooperation. Dave sent over a few last changes - some leaves to go with the daffodils, a correction from under to over in some of the weaving at the top, and an adjustment to the top of the knotwork to better match the taper of the spoon, and the angles of the vines above. When I look at the design now, I feel like we've accomplished exactly what we intended, and the design finally feels complete. I see Welsh and American heritage represented, I see parts that are very "Dave" and parts that are very "Laura", and, in the daffodils, I see a blend of both of us, and will see it even more when each of us carves one. And throughout the process, I know I really enjoyed the back-and-forth consideration and inspiration in the collaborative design process. And now there are the next steps!

We've already been discussing wood selection. We considered some maple Dave had, and some myrtle I had, but neither seemed quite right. Then, Dave suggested some birch he has. I have never carved in birch, but Dave's description of it sounds like it is wonderful to carve! I believe the word that really sold me was "buttery" - which is one of the biggest things a carver ever wants in wood. It also looks like it has a lovely, glowing color to it, that would suit our design beautifully. I think we may have selected our wood! The next step, I suppose, will be transferring the design to the wood, in its proper scale. We have been thinking about 17" for the length of the spoon: a manageable size for drawing, and for shipping. And then, on to the cutting! How do two people cut out a design? do we really need to split that step? Hmmmm.... I wonder what Dave thinks! - Laura

Dave thinks the guy with the birch and the saw gets to do the cutting!
Laura thinks that's fabulous! I suspect Dave is far superior at sawing.

Below, I'll attach a series of the design pictures, as we thought it might be interesting to see the progression all in one place... With a darkened version of the final design at the end

A Nice Diversion!

2010-05-15T17:14:00.001-07:00

Today I'm stepping away from the cerebral stresses of lovespoon design so that I can get back to the more elemental pleasures of playing with wood and heavy tools that go 'thwack' when you use them!
Laura and I are on the prowl for a nice piece of wood for the Eisteddfod spoon so I thought I would have a look at some broadleaf maple I have been storing for a couple of years.The wood is still in log form, so I am going to split out some little planks with a mallet and froe. This is the same method used by roofers to make shingles and shakes. Basically it involves whalloping a sturdy steel blade (the froe) with a lead or heavy wood mallet to drive it through the block and split off slabs.

Sometimes it is easier said than done... especially if there are hidden knots inside the block. Ultimately though, it gives the best slab of wood for carving as the direction the piece splits shows exactly how the grain of the wood is running within the tree.

If things go to plan and the block isn't harbouring any unwanted annoyances, the slab will separate nice and neatly and you will be left with a fairly tidy piece of carvable wood!

Once the board is separated from the block, it can be leveled and cleaned-up as desired, either by some judicious axe-work or by running it over the jointer. Because I am ever-so-slightly lazy, I generally opt for the jointer, but if I am feeling 'back to the landish' I will sometimes use the axe or a hand held plane to tidy things up.
With the board nicely planed, I can get a really good look at the grain and check to see if there is any figure to it or anything of interest. Most carvers prefer to have pretty plain and uniform grain so that the wood will be more predicable and the carving goes easier. Because I have always been obtuse, I like it to have some figure and some zing to the grain pattern. This generally means I get a bit more of a fight from the wood, but the end results are generally worth the tussle! In this case, the wood is fairly uniform in its grain orientation and there isn't much in the way of figure, but it has some spalting (fine dark lines) which might go well with our design. We'll see how Laura feels about it and will compare it to some nice pieces of myrtle wood she has just been given. Although I am a big fan of maple, the thought of myrtle wood for a spoon destined for Oregon has some allure too. Stay tuned!
And please also consider making a donation to the Left Coast Eisteddfod. Your contribution (no matter how big or small) will help produce this exciting Welsh cultural event and will give you the opportunity to win the completed spoon!!
- Dave

Further consideration...

2010-05-06T14:05:00.000-07:00

So many drawings, so many features. After some consideration, and putting off the actual size/arrangement of daffodils, Dave liked version E, I liked version E, and others also mentioned liking version E. Dave and I both, however, felt like there were still some thin areas. (and we still want to change the flowers!) So, I stared at the drawing some more.

It isn't that I don't like negative space in a design. In fact, negative space is a great tool, and I think it contributes a good deal to the delicate look in a lot of my designs. It can contribute to the carving difficulty, too - long, thin, unsupported vines will have a tendency to want to break. That, I definitely DO consider!

So, now, all things considered, a thought entered my little head, and I started to drawing again. I realized, if I had vines stemming from above the twist, why couldn't I have them stemming from below the twist, as well? It might even-out one of the thin areas. Another thin area seemed to be inside the top of the "frame". It occurred to me that I could play a little with that vine, and somehow tie it back into the lower vines. This would also create separate areas for each daffodil. I wasn't sure how I felt about that, but I also wasn't quite sure how the daffodils should really look, either. Big? Small? With leaves? Without? Hmmm... so in this first drawing, I drew two small sample daffodils.

A quick e-mail from Dave suggested larger daffodils And, I agreed with the comments about the flowers in last week's "F" design... if I liked any arrangement of flowers, I liked the arrangement where one was low, and the other higher. So, I tried to enlarge the flowers a little bit, and drew another arrangement. This time, I didn't see room for leaves, so - no leaves. Now the design is feeling more balanced to me. I think my only reservation is with the flowers. It may not even be a reservation, in fact; it may simply be that there are so many possibilities, not yet explored. That is often the problem with designs - deciding when to stop. Maybe Dave will have the idea for that final adjustment that makes us both say, "that's it!" We shall see!
Enough for now...

- Laura

The Top

2010-04-29T04:50:00.000-07:00

I found myself very much in agreement with Dave's new, more tapered shape. It also left a little more room for me to play in the top part. My only regret is that the dragon was seeming a little small to me, and the eagle looked especially big. I had been having another problem, though, with my flower ideas for the top. I really like the little flowers like I'd been drawing - I had recently completed another spoon, in fact, using little flowers.
However, as you can see, these flowers are scattered upon a natural central vine structure in this design. I did not like the idea of creating a web of vines simply to support small flowers within the top area of our Eisteddfod spoon. Also, while these little vanilla flowers (both figuratively and literally) can symbolize gentleness and affection, I found myself yearning for a little bit more Welsh symbolism in this spoon. After this train of thought, and missing the prevalence the Welsh Dragon in the design, my mind went to daffodils. So, I made some designs with 2 daffodils - I thought it could be fun if Dave and I each made a daffodil. To begin, though, I would need to establish a vine structure to tie the eagle into the rest of the design. I wanted to get that to the point where we were both happy with it, and then we could finalize two daffodils. So, I went about some vine-drawing again, this time deliberately leaving some space for daffodils. A quick email exchange with Dave revealed that he liked the 2 daffodil idea, as well. We had always wanted to have some part that we both do together, and two takes on essentially the same subject would satisfy that desire.

After all this thought, I started with Dave's expanded frame and drew up a series of new drawings, 4 of which I sent on to Dave. I included some daffodils, but asked Dave not to consider them - just to consider the main vinework. The daffodils (and some leaves) I drew here were just placeholders. We may want to make them bigger, or positioned differently... we could concern ourselves with that part next.
Dave and I now needed to consider what we liked or didn't like about the drawings - hopefully there would be a clear favorite. What do you think? Any favorites? Let us know! - Laura
<-- Top B ..............

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.Top C -->
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<-- Top E ............ Top F -->

The Middle

2010-04-22T17:29:00.000-07:00

Well, after having a really good, hard look at the new knotwork, I am in agreement with Laura that it needs to come down a bit, so I am going to have a bash at putting it just above the dragon and getting rid of the circle idea. I think if I can fatten up some of the knotwork just above the dragon's head, it will give some visual weight to the area and will let me tie the knot in a bit more smoothly.

With the knotwork moved, there seems to be a 'tapering' feeling to the flow of the overall design, so I have widened the top area with the eagle a bit more and am tying the knotwork through. My hope is that we can surround the frame with the eagle and the knotwork and give things more of a three dimensional feel. It will make for some nasty carving problems, but should look pretty smart if we can pull it off!

After looking at this newest outline for a while, I am feeling that it is a bit stubby and too short at the top.

I have opted to paste a couple of photocopies together to see if lengthening the top section helps things at all. Although it feels a bit empty and airy through the top section now, I think that the overall form of the design is very close to right now and that Laura will be able to fill in this area with some of her lovely vine or floral ideas.
In the meantime, a quick reminder that you can win the finished spoon simply by donating to the Left Coast Eisteddfod. Every dollar you donate equals a chance at winning, so more dollars equals more chances!! Please consider supporting this worthwhile event and helping to further Welsh cultural events in North America!
Dave

Re-arranging things...

2010-04-16T11:35:00.001-07:00

My immediate thought when I saw Dave's drawing with the knotwork tied in with the eagle's tail was that the knotwork would make a lovely central part of the spoon. I share Dave's appreciation for the message that Celtic knotwork conveys - forever and Celtic heritage, among other things. Cymru am byth! (Wales forever!) Seems like a good central message for this spoon! I made several different drawings, arranging, re-arranging, changing sizes.... all sorts of things.

Here is where I arrived:
I am still unsure about the top half- I like the idea of vinework wrapping around the flat frame-like part. I still was unsure of how I wanted to do flowers, or if we should even try a couple daffodils instead, but moving the knotwork into the middle would leave room at the top for Dave and I to do something together. Also, above the knotwork, I added a little twist that I seem to do in a lot of my designs. I thought it might be a good transition from Dave's style to mine. I also drew a couple simple vines, still tying the knot into the eagle's tail, and behind the frame, also into the wing. Before I went too far working on ideas for the top, though, I wanted Dave's thoughts about moving the knotwork into the middle. If he likes this, and doesn't miss the circle in the middle too much, then we can work on the top part next. We'll see what Dave thinks...

- Laura

Knots

2010-04-13T10:42:00.000-07:00

Wow!! After going through Laura's flurry of excellent ideas, it looks like we will be spoiled for choices idea-wise!
Any one of the drawings she has come up with could form the basis for a marvelous lovespoon design so I've photocopied them all and am looking to see which design elements jump out at me and which don't.
I am very drawn to the eagle Laura has drawn with its wing wrapped dramatically around the top section of the spoon. I love the idea of the eagle appearing in our design as it is the symbol of America and it will go nicely with the Welsh dragon. Since the spoon symbolizes the merging of cultures, the dragon and eagle are very logical symbols, but I'd like to figure out a way to merge Laura's more realistic looking eagle into some Celtic knotwork as I have done with the dragon.
I also feel there is a section above the central circle which feels a bit too 'light'. To give this section a bit more weight without having it become overwhelmingly heavy, I want to utilize a nice pattern of Celtic knotwork.
While Celtic knotwork is almost unheard of on historical lovespoon examples, it has been embraced by modern lovespoon carvers to represent the notion of eternity or eternal love. This is especially so when the knot is circular or is 'enclosed' with no beginning or ending to the knot. For our spoon, the notion of eternity as it relates to the emigration of the Welsh to North America is an apt one. the Welsh have been here since the earliest European arrivals and hopefully will remain here as long as there is a North America! I don't know if Laura feels as strongly about it as I do, but for me, things like this lovespoon and the Left Coast Eisteddfod it is being made in support of, vividly illustrate that despite being the 'forgotten Celts', the Welsh have made and continue to make vibrant contributions to North American culture. I should mention that this spoon is being designed and crafted to help raise funds for the Left Coast Eisteddfod which will be held in Portland, Oregon on October 03-10, 2010. This will be the second year for this annual event and an exciting combination of online cultural competitions and live events in Portland. Please visit: http://americymru.ning.com/page/the-left-coast-eisteddfod-2010 to learn more. Your donation to the Left Coast Eisteddfod will earn you a chance to win this spoon, so even if you don't want to enter the competitions, you could still win a very lovely prize!!

So, with a nice Celtic knot in mind, I selected Laura's eagle crowned spoon with its little cascade of flowers. The lower body of the eagle merges into the knotwork, but its upper body remains pretty realistic. I changed some of the framework around and utilized some of the bottom section of the frame to create the origin of the knot. The knotwork has nicely filled in some of the 'empty' spaces, but I now am not so happy about the central circle. Originally, I had hoped that it would become the focal area of the spoon, but I'm not so sure about it now. It will be interesting to hear Laura's views on whether or not she likes the knotwork and where she thinks we should go with it next!
-Dave

An eagle and lots of flowers

2010-04-06T09:50:00.000-07:00

I was very happy to see Dave's Dragon, with its knotwork tongue, because I have always felt that dragons and knotwork were two things very distinct within his style. They were fantastic. I would never have seen that lurking in that first sketch, but I was very happy that he did!

I had a lot to live up to with the next part. We'd talked about having elements distinct to each of our styles, so I tried to think about what is distinct in my style. We had talked about having an eagle, so I wanted to give that a try, but I never drew an eagle before, so I wasn't sure how much it would look like my style. One thing I know I do a lot is to make small flowers. So, I started there. I'd need a vine structure underneath small flowers, too. Almost immediately, I abandoned the bridge idea, and drew in some vines that would fit around the flat, frame-like component from the initial sketch. I also wanted to keep the central part, for Dave and I to try to do something together. So - I was focusing on the top half of the frame.

I started with a vine structure, and sketched in an eagle. I had made a few side-sketches of an eagle, after looking at a few photographic references. I was trying to decide on a position, and some generalities that make an eagle an eagle. There's something about the shape and strength of the wings and tail, along with the hooked beak and stern-looking eye, that I felt made an eagle look like an eagle. I knew one position I liked was what I saw at Eagle's Point at the Grand Canyon... if rocks could look so distinctly like an eagle, then I could certainly find a simple way to draw an eagle. After sketching a few positions, the position you see in this first drawing is where I landed.

I liked the movement, and I liked having lots of wing showing. Also, with this position, he could wrap around the frame, and enough of him would still show from the front of the spoon. The only hesitation I had was, it looked very literal. I didn't have a solution, though, so I moved on, for the moment.

One thing I learned in school (where I was mainly a painter), was to work on the whole piece, and not to be too precious with any one part. So I moved on to vines, coming up from the dragon's tongue and tail. I have to admit - I really like drawing vines and leaves. I see celtic knotwork, and I think: that looks fun! I want to try that! But, then I end up staring at a blank page for a while. Instead, I have decided that vines are my version of knotwork, though they are not very distinct like knotwork can be. Regardless, I like vines, and I try to keep to the over-under rule of celtic knotwork, as much as I can. So you see this first vine structure in this first drawing, too.

Next, I moved on to the little flowers idea.

There are lots of types of little flowers I could draw. I wanted to do something somewhat star-shaped - so - 5 petals.

I started with this drawing with lots of little star-shaped flowers scattered over the vines.

I was going for different-sized flowers, to try to make them interesting. But, it just looked cluttered. I wasn't very sold on this sketch... I didn't even get around to drawing in the eagle. I still kept it, just in case Dave would see anything in there that I didn't.

Next, I tried a different vine structure, and the same type of flowers. This time, I drew in the eagle, and had him landing on one of the vines.

Hmm.... I liked the leaves sort of outlining the flat frame part on the sides... but wasn't sure how I felt about the rest. This would be just another sketch to see if there was any redeeming value. I did like the idea of the eagle being integrated into the vinework, even if it was in such a literal way. Here, I kept with the star-shaped simple flowers.

I still wasn't feeling it, though, so I kept drawing. I drew another arrangement of vines, this time going further with the outline idea around the frame. I also made some different flowers, like flowers I have enjoyed carving before. That might make them more distinctly "me", too. I was starting to like this one. I drew more vines, dangling from the inside top. I liked the look of this. I wasn't sure what, exactly to do with whatever came down into the center, but I knew I liked the idea. I thought it could help bring us into the center part, that Dave and I had been talking about having as something more merging our two styles. I was hoping Dave was formulating some ideas towards that center, while I was working on the top. Meanwhile, I was starting to feel good about this latest sketch:

So, I drew in some background to help make it easier to see. I had reached a point where I wanted input from Dave, so I sent these 4 sketches over to him. I also told him I was concerned about how literal the eagle was, and wondered if he had any suggestions for how to make it more stylized. I also wondered if he was having thoughts about the center part, as I was still drawing a blank about that. I also told him that I wasn't too concerned about the placement of the flowers, but was interested in what he thought of the different vine configurations, or if he especially liked a certain type of flower. Like I said - I just wanted some input from Dave at this point. :) I just hoped I hadn't given him information overload. I think I was already there. Let's see where Dave goes next!

- Laura

P.S. As an afterthought a few days later, I made an attempt at a stylized eagle - made of vines, and fitting into the rest of the vines. I also wanted to see how another type of small flowers might fit - this time, broader petals, like buttercups. So, despite the probably-too-many other sketches of eagle and flowers, I ventured into one more, and sent it along to Dave, to consider along with the others. Here's that last sketch:

Dragon development...

2010-03-29T15:56:00.000-07:00

When looking at Laura's sketch for the Left Coast Eisteddfod lovespoon, I couldn't help but notice that the vinework she had drawn just above the double bowls reminded me of a little stylized dragon.

This was fortuitous as we had both wanted to make sure a dragon was included somewhere in this year's design. Having it 'pop up' like this made working it into the design a breeze...if only designing things was always made so simple!!
I really liked the 'knotwork' effect the overlapping vines were making in this section of the spoon and I was anxious to keep that effect going with the dragon. To achieve the intertwined look it was necessary for the dragon to become much more sylized than last years version. This year, the dragons' legs emerge from the bowls and wind off to become the tail (which will continue on through the design), the wings and the neck/head area. The dragons tongue will also become a nice windy section of knotwork while his chest area weaves over itself and through the framework section of the original drawing. As with last year's dragon, he has a proud but not overly aggressive demeanor.

I love to make heart shaped bowls whenever I can, so it was a nice surprise when this sketch showed me Laura likes them too! However, with changes to the dragon underway, it became apparant that the lovely heart-shaped bowls were a bit too symmetric and looked a little bit 'still'. By raising one bowl just slightly higher than the other, we created a little bit of visual tension and gave the area a subtle feeling of movement. Stretching the bowls out a bit made them feel a bit more dynamic as well. I'm pretty excited about the little dragon and am very keen to see what Laura comes up with for the upper sections of the design!

- Dave

The sketching begins!

2010-03-23T12:28:00.000-07:00

Potential customers are always surprised that creating the sketch for a lovespoon design takes as much time and effort as it does. As much as I wish I could just dip a bucket into a never-end well of ideas and pull out a finished drawing whenever I felt like it, it rarely happens that way. In fact coming up with the initial design spark or theme concept is the hardest part of the whole process. Generally, I count on a good third of the total time involved in the creation of a lovespoon to be taken up in design work.

Which is why, when Laura and I began trading some ideas via email to see if we could come up with a start concept, I figured it would be quite a while before anything much started to come together. Sure, we did have a couple of initial ideas such as our plan to work with the idea of '2' and the idea of incorporating symbols of both Wales and America, but scant else after that! So it was a complete surprise and shock when after only an hour or two this lovely sketch appeared in my inbox.

Laura had been working on an idea for a spoon with two layers and had mailed the sketch over to illustrate some of the descriptions she had mentioned during the emails. The design as shown, is a way to mix organic and traditional designs while using the double layers to highlight the '2' idea. Talk about a great start to the project! A lot of guys would be delighted to have this as a working drawing, let alone having it as a 'rough sketch'. I can already see a couple of potential ideas lurking in there and feel like we've rocketed over the hard part already!
- Dave

When Dave first asked me to join him for this project, I was very excited, so my mind was flooded with thoughts, but very disorganized. How would I make some sense of this chaos, and merge these ideas with Dave's? How does he approach coming up with a theme, or what elements to include, or what message to convey? Then, Dave suggested "two" as a theme, which made a great basis, and helped give some direction to the chaos in my head. So - Here I am, getting to work on a spoon with this carver whom I admire so much - naturally, I hope to learn from him, and hopefully even try something a little ambitious. I am so excited, I probably inundated him with thoughts and questions. But then, we started discussing ideas over email, and before I knew it, some ideas were easier drawn than described, so I sent a sketch over to Dave. It was especially to show him the 2-layer "bridge" idea I'd had on a recent design, but I got carried away and drew the rest of a spoon, too - trying to illustrate a few other ideas we had mentioned. I didn't intend for it to be a starting point, but once Dave suggested it, I realized I liked it, too. So there we were! This collaberation thing seems to be going well!

We had talked about playing on our strengths - as far as I can tell, everything is Dave's strength, and I suppose some of mine will reveal themselves. For instance, it seems I may be good for general shapes or concepts. Someone once asked me which I liked better: designing spoons, or carving them. I don't remember if I was ever able to come up with an answer. But, I do know that I struggle when I get into the details, so I'm hoping Dave doesn't. I am excited to see what happens next!!
- Laura

I'm very excited to be working on another lovespoon for the Left Coast Eisteddfod!

2010-03-15T13:06:00.001-07:00

I'm very excited to be working on another lovespoon for the Left Coast Eisteddfod! After the success of last year's spoon and the enthusiastic response it generated for the Left Coast Eisteddfod, we decided to make it an annual event.

This time, though, I wanted to try something a bit different. I'll be designing and carving this lovespoon in concert with Ohio lovespoon carver, Laura Gorun, so it will very much be a joint effort! Laura is relatively new to lovespoon carving, but her spoons have the sophisticated design and elegant craftsmanship of someone who has been at it for much longer!! I'm certain that working with her is going to yield a really marvelous lovespoon!

Although we will be separated by many thousands of miles and have only ever met through the internet, we plan to design the spoon via lots of back-and-forth emails, taking advantage of the incredible opportunities for collaboration the electronic age has opened up.

Our 'theme' for the lovespoon will be "2." As it is the second year of the Eisteddfod, the number 2 seemed a good jumping off point for the design. We also thought that with one of us being male and the other female, one of us fairly new to carving, one an 'oldtimer' and with us living in two different countries, 2 seemed to crop up everywhere. The challenge now will be for us to work that into a viable design!!

When it comes time to carve the lovespoon, we will carve half the spoon each. Like all carvers, we each have elements that we are good at and some that we are not quite as comfortable with, so we will attempt to divvy up the carving so that we each work as much as possible to our strongest suit.

This will be a unique experiment for both of us, especially given that lovespoon carving is generally a pretty solitary endeavour. For both of us, working with another set of ideas and attitutes toward lovespoon carving will both open design doors and create some challenges!

The plan is to work up the design over the next couple of weeks and then begin the carving process. This blog will illustrate what we have been getting up to and will show the whole process from initial rough ideas to the finished piece. Both Laura and I hope that you will enjoy following along and that you will be inspired to donate to the Left Coast Eisteddfod for your chance to win the completed lovespoon!!

Next week we'll post the first set of drawings and then the hard stuff starts!

In the meantime, we hope you will visit us at:

www.BlakesPA.com to view Laura's handmade lovespoons

and

www.davidwesternlovespoons.com to view David's work

2010-03-15T13:01:00.001-07:00

Here is a picture of the 2009 spoon...

From AmeriCymru on the 2010 LEFT COAST EISTEDDFOD LOVESPOON

2010-03-01T15:00:00.000-08:00

Competitions for the 2010 Left Coast Eisteddfod have been launched on AmeriCymru and we're hard at work planning this year's physical event in Portland, Oregon.

Online competitions this year include poetry in Welsh, Spanish and English with judges respectively John Good, Geraldine Mac Burney and Peter Thabit Jones; short fiction to be judged again this year by the very excellent Lloyd Jones; Images judged by photographer Glyn Davies.

David Western has very generously offered to create another work of art to support the 2010 event and this year will be collaborating with another artist, lovespoon carver Laura Gorun of Ohio.

David was born in Cardiff but emigrated to Canada, where he now lives in Victoria, British Columbia. Dave has been carving lovespoons for over 20 years and is the author of The Fine Art of Carving Lovespoons. This spoon will be Dave's first collabation with another lovespoon artist and he is delighted to be working with Laura on it.

Laura, a native of Akron, Ohio now lives and carves in Worthington, Ohio. Laura is of Welsh descent through a paternal grandfather and "relatively new" to lovespoon carving. More of her work can be seen here.

This year's blog will follow the process of the creation of the 2010 spoon, with contributions from both artists. As a starting point, they have decided on a theme of "Two" for this year's spoon: two countries, two carvers and the second Eisteddfod. Collaborating on the designing and carving will be a new experience for both Dave and Laura, especially since they live and work in Canada and the US, respectively, a couple of thousand miles apart. The inevitable challenges and learning experiences for both carvers working together should add an interesting twist to this year's blog and the carving experience. On behalf of the Left Coast Eisteddfod, we at AmeriCymru thank you both very, very much for the contribution of your talent, your creativity, your labor and your generous kindness and look forward to the journey of creation of this spoon.

Happy Saint David's Day 2010!

We have a winner!

2009-08-25T18:26:00.000-07:00

It gives me great pleasure to announce the winner of the first Left Coast Eisteddfod lovespoon is Howard Evans! Howard was very generous in his support of the Eisteddfod and is a more than worthy winner of this traditional, handcrafted, one-of-a-kind Welsh lovespoon!

As the designer and carver of this spoon, it has been very heartening for me to see people support the inaugural Left Coast Eisteddfod through their kind donations and to personally have been the recipient of so many kind words of praise from many of you. I would, therefore, like to take this occasion to announce that I will be back with a new spoon design to support next year's edition of the Left Coast Eisteddfod!! Lots of lessons have been learned from the whole process of trying to initiate a great Welsh cultural event here in North America and although it has not been without its challenges, I believe next year's version will be bigger, better and even more widely supported than this years!

I look forward to designing next year's spoon and to showing its progress on this blog and I hope you will continue visit me and support the Left Coast Eisteddfod as well!!

So congratulations, Howard!!

Dragon the Line

2009-08-14T09:15:00.000-07:00

At long last, the Left Coast Eisteddfod Dragon is done! And here he is in all his 150-year -old, walnut splendor! He is a handsome chappie, I'll give him that! His abalone eyes are dazzlingly radiant and the richness of the walnut grain gives the bowls and his wings a lovely glow and shimmer. He is everything I had hoped he would be and I feel great pride in having created this lovespoon in support of the Left Coast Eisteddfod.

Now, if I were Catherine Zeta Jones, Cerys Matthews, Tom Jones, Anthony Hopkins or any of the other myriad of famous Welsh, I'd be asking myself why I don't have a stunning lovespoon like this in my house. I'd be wondering what kind of Taff would miss the opportunity to own a proper, tidy lovespoon like this one especially when supporting the Left Coast Eisteddfod means supporting a little bit of Wales overseas. I'd say. "Count me in, I want to support the Eisteddfod and win that lovely spoon!"

But I wouldn't just be thinking that if I was a famous Welshman....EVERYONE of Welsh ancestry or with any interest in Wales and its traditions has an opportunity to get involved in supporting the establishment of a wonderful Welsh cultural event here in North America. Your support is what will enable the Left Coast Eisteddfod to grow and will showcase more and more of the rich talent that the Welsh community has brought to this continent.

I hope that you have enjoyed following the creation of this spoon and that it will inspire you to become involved with the Left Coast Eisteddfod!

Sexy Spoon!

2009-08-04T11:05:00.000-07:00

With all the carving done and the eyes inlayed, its time to make our spoon nice and sexy! A needle file gets into all the tight spots and cleans up any rough areas without leaving behind a bunch of sanding grit. This is important if I discover I need to go back to carve some more as I won't have to worry about sanding residue dulling my knife blades.

When I am absolutely certain that all the carving and filing is done, I break out the sandpaper to finish smooth areas such as the bowls. This is actually a difficult and time-consuming time in the whole spoon carving process as any scratches or bumps and lumps which get missed will show up like nobody's business when I apply the finishing oils. Thankfully, the Tour de France is raging on tv at the moment and I can take out my nervous energy doing a bit of sanding while the Schleck brothers hammer their opponents on the Alps.

And here he is!! The Left Coast Eisteddfod lovespoon is completed and is ready for the really exciting bit...the finishing finish!

I'm going to go with Deft brand clear Danish Oil as my oil finish and will give it 3 or 4 coats before following up with a nice application of beeswax polish.

Here we go! I use a cheap little pig-hair brush to really ladle out the first coat of oil. I want good coverage and for the spoon to really soak it up, so I'm not afraid to really splash it on. This is the time when any sanding errors will leap to the forefront, so I've got my fingers crossed that I found everything before now!

WOW! Get a load of this! This is what 150-plus-year-old walnut looks like when the finish treatment is applied! This spoon is going to be a stunner! Man, what I wouldn't give to get my hands on a few more pieces of this magnificent timber. Sadly, this is almost the last of my supply so there won't be too many more spoons like this! So if you want to see how this spoon looks fully 'dressed' in its new coat of oil, stay tuned for the next blog!

And please, if you enjoy quality craft, art, music and written word, please help support the Left Coast Eisteddfod with a donation today or buy your tickets to attend the events! Any and every amount is gratefully received and you can be there to participate in the drawing to win this spoon!

Eye, Eye, Captain!

2009-07-29T10:38:00.001-07:00

I'm getting really close to finishing the dragon. I've only got the eye left to inlay and some touch up work on the head and neck and the spoon will be ready for a final 'once over'. To do an abalone inlay, I glue the piece in place with a dab of white glue and let it set for a couple of hours.

When the abalone dot feels good and firm, I run around the edge of it with a very fine razor knife to scribe the line I will use as my grounding boundary. When the scribing is done, I use a small chisel to pop the dot off the wood.

Next up is the grounding. In this phase of things, I level the surface for my dot to sit on and try to get it so that with the dot in place, a little less than a 1/16th of an inch of abalone remains proud of the surface. I do a careful dry fitting to make sure everything is in order before I commit to glueing it down. Nothing says disaster like having your abalone sticking up!

Although it gets a bit messy when the excess glue seeps out, I don't worry about it as long as everything still fits properly! While the glue is wet, I wipe off the excess so that life is a bit easier later when the glue hardens up. Having big lumps of hardened glue on the wood surface is hard on the tools and my patience.

When the glue has set, the dot gets filed down and softly domed to more resemble an eye. As I mentioned in an earlier post, abalone and mother of pearl both make very, very noxious dust when they are sanded and filed. If you are inclined to try your own abalone inlay at home, please wear a good dust mask or respirator and try to work outside where the dust stands a better chance of vacating your personal space!!

The dragon's head is now pretty much done and all that remains is to give him a good final sanding and touch up any little areas I'm not completely satisfied with.
If you've slogged it through these months of blogs, then you won't want to miss the next installment when I start applying finish to the spoon and this beautiful piece of 150 year old walnut flashes into spectacular life! Ok, so it's not a nail-biting final round of American Idol or a scintillating episode of Big Brother, but I guarantee it will be exciting in its own peculiar way!!

And please remember, time is a tickin' on the August 21 kick-off of the Left Coast Eisteddfod...the reason for this spoon's existance. Get yourself to the Left Coast Eisteddfod in Portland, Oregon and get tickets to win it at the event!

Practicing My Scales

2009-07-25T18:54:00.000-07:00

This week I finally got back to the Eisteddfod dragon after being away for a few weeks and then being swamped by all the "wedding season' carving which I should have done before I left!
It was a nice treat to reaquaint myself with my little walnut friend here and to work on getting him ready for the Left Coast Eisteddfod next month.

I've got some work to do on his body and want to define the scales a bit to match the front of the spoon. As with any part of the carving, the sensible thing to do is pencil out the lines and then do a shallow cut with a straight knife to ensure everything is where it should be. Because it is such a sensible thing to do, I used to ignore this phase and plunge straight into the carving. Now, with advancing years and a bit of the wisdom that years of mistake making brings, I always do my drawing before I start hacking.

Here I'm using a very short straight knife to clear away the bulk of the scale. As you'll note, I am cutting toward myself which is yet another not-very-sensible thing to do. I am, in my defence, restraining the cut considerably and only taking a very small shaving. This limits the sweep of the cut and the force I need to make it...the idea is to stop the knife from being able to reach the left hand....works most of the time!

Here's a picture showing the shaping of the scales. As I proceed up the length of the dragon's body, the repetition of the scale form will make the body look much more vibrant and lively. The trick at this point is not to make a mistake and whack a chunk off the high sections of the scale. I also want to remember to shape the roundness of the chest as I am working my way along.

Nothing works better for putting a very gentle curve into the scales than the bent knife. With the two sided blade, I can cut in two directions without moving the piece and can easily alter the radius of the curve. Curiously, the bent knife never gets the credit it deserves except among NW coastal artists who keenly understand its great value and abilities. I know I would be lost without mine!!

Well, there he is, almost done! Just some work to do on the head and another eye to inlay next week and we're almost there!

Speaking of almost there, so is the Left Coast Eisteddfod!! With only a month to go until the big days (2 of 'em!) things are getting exciting. If you haven't donated to the cause, please consider a donation today. Every dollar you donate equals one chance to win this lovespoon!!

Home Again, Home Again, at last!

2009-07-06T09:13:00.000-07:00

I've just got back from a couple of weeks in Europe. My wife loves to go there for the art, the scenery, the markets, the food, the vino and the history. Me, I like to go there to crawl around under church pews, to crick my neck trying to spot carvings on timber framed houses, to be the guy laying on the floor taking pictures of an ornamented chair leg while everyone else is drooling over Rembrandts and to be the fellow who barely notices the magnificent stained glass of Chartres Cathedral because I'm mesmerized by the tiny roses carved into the stone columns.
I confess, I absolutely love the wood and stone carving of the medieval and renaissance period! Whenever I start to think I am getting pretty good at what I do, a quick look at some carvings done by the artists of medieval Europe puts me well and truly back in my place and vividly illustrates the distance I have yet to travel!

But it isn't just the masterworks of the medieval church carver which inspire. The 'folk' carvings of the Barvarian and Tirolean Alps never fail to dazzle me with their exhuberance and virtuosity. Scarcely any wooden object was left unadorned and the result is an exciting legacy of chip carving which is still practiced by adherents around the globe today.

What I really like about wandering around Europe though, is that wood carving seems to show up everywhere. This picture was taken of a shop door in a Parisien fashion arcade. Although the picture doesn't do it justice, the work was exquisite. If there was some of this kind of stuff at the fashion stores here in Canada, my wife would have a fighting chance of getting me to go shopping with her once in a while!

I know that many carvers out there struggle with finding designs to inspire them and they especially find imagining their own patterns very difficult. I'm not too much different in that respect but I have found that by continually keeping my eye peeled for little gems like this, I have managed to vastly expand the repertoire of ideas I have to draw on during the design process. This simple little detail from a confessional is absolutely captivating and will definitely find its way into one of my designs some day soon. It may get altered a bit, but it is such an elegant form that I can't wait to find a way to carve it! To have this kind of inspiration available almost everywhere one looks really does make a trip to Europe more than worthwhile for a carver. And did I mention the beer? Ahhhh, the beer!

I'll conclude my little travelogue with this last picture from Chartres Cathedral (I was exaggerating for effect earlier, I did notice the stained glass!). This, for me, was the absolute highlight of my European trip! Although hard to see in this pic (as it is in real life) there is a tiny frog carved onto the stone column. His head has been broken off at some point, but his torso and limbs remain. Representing a staggering amount of extra work for the carver, this little frog was likely carved here for the sole purpose of supplying some whimsical beauty for the observant viewer. What a delight he must have been for eagle eyed children (and adults) over the years. And what a modest, quiet and yet powerful illustration of the beauty of carving!

Inspirations

2009-06-20T21:43:00.001-07:00

As I've been compiling this little blog following the twists and turns of carving a lovespoon for the Left Coast Eisteddfod, I've received a number of emails from fellow carvers, lovespoon enthusiasts and a few people who are 'just interested' wanting to know how I got into this and what my inspirations are.

I can tell you that I basically fell into lovespoon carving. Although I have been aware of what they are since childhood, and have tinkered with carving them since my teens, the really serious obsession (or as I prefer to call it, professional interest) with lovespoons is about 10 years old now.

My main inspirations were, and still are, the lovely antique spoons housed at the National History Museum of Wales at St Fagans (near Cardiff). I always make time for a day or two at the museum studying these little gems of fervent workmanship whenever I am in Wales. A finer introduction into the craft cannot be found anywhere else (except maybe in my book The Fine Art of Lovespoon Carving- how's THAT for a shameless plug??). I encourage anyone keen on lovespoons who plans on visiting Wales to make time for this marvelous museum. Even if you could care less about lovespoons, the outdoor museum is chock-a-block with tremendous things to see.
But if I were to single out one spoon which above all others has been my greatest source of inspiration and as acted as a beacon guiding me to strive to constantly improve both my carving and my design it would be this one.

For me, this spoon epitomizes all that is great about the lovespoon. Masterfully and elegantly carved, the spoon appears deceptively simple, yet every feature is flawlessly carved and the represents the very highest level of craftsmanship. If you want a spoon that 'has it all'...this is the one. Whoever the unknown craftsman was who made this brilliant offering, I sincerely hope that he won the heart of his intended and lead a long, happy and productive life! He deserves it!

After that masterwork, this little spoon may seem like the 'ugly duckling', but what I love and find so inspiring about this spoon is the passion which seems to almost emanate from its fibres! Lofty talk, I know, but despite its rather rudamentary craftsmanship and design, this spoon has tremendous emotion. Made with the simplest of tools by someone in the deepest thrawl of love, the bowl is exquisitely formed, showing an amateur carver giving it his very best effort . For 'feeling', this spoon has always rated as one of the most inspirational for me!

The last example from the St Fagan's collection is this completely over-the-top example of woodcarving virtuosity. A riot of chainwork, balls in cages, swivels and a fiendishly difficult diagonal chain pattern, this spoon was carved by a very, very serious professional. It would have taken months and months of patient and extremely nerve-wracking carving to create this magnum opus! Whenever I think I am getting fairly good at carving, I study this spoon and realize just how far I have yet to go!

But it isn't just ancient history which inspires. Recently, I had the very good fortune to meet carver Alun Davies of Wales, whom I believe carves the most technically perfect lovespoons I have ever seen. Alun's mastery of woodcarving is so complete that his spoons are almost unbelievable in their perfection. No single aspect of them is any less than stunning. In fact, the first time I laid eyes on them, I felt like I really needed to get some carving lessons and to practice a LOT more!! Alun's spoons aren't just technically staggering though, they have a soft and elegant charm which is really the root of lovespoon carving...they have feeling!!! It was Alun who told me something which has become my lovespoon carving mantra... "A lovespoon is not a lovespoon unless it is carved with love; love for the wood, love for the tradition and love for the person who will receive it." Hang that above the workbench and you have all the inspiration you'll ever need!!

My last lovespoon inspiration has probably had the most profound influence on in my lovespoon carving as he has shown me that the possibilities for the tradition are vast, varied and exciting. Mike Davies is probably the most well known of all the Welsh lovespoon carvers and for many years has been a one-man promotion for this venerable tradition. Thousands of people around the world proudly display Mike's work on their walls and for good reason....Mike was one of the first to really realize the design possibilities for the lovespoon outside the 'antique traditional'. With dramatic Celtic designs, dramatic modern pieces and delicate foliage inspired spoons, Mike's work is always adventurous. Realizing that there were so many unexplored avenues available to the lovespoon carver was probably the greatest inspiration for me and I will always be grateful to Mike for so vividly pointing that out!

I have enjoyed great generousity, cameraderie and inspiration from many lovespoon carvers over the years and I know that like everything else, the more influences, techniques and ideas are brought to a subject, the better it gets. Hopefully, one day I will be an inspiration to a beginning carver or my designs will spark inspiration for someone to take the craft another step further and that will be a very happy day for me.

BA DA WING!

2009-06-13T10:25:00.000-07:00

This week I'm doing the back side of the dragon's wing. Because this particular design is kind of a 2 1/2 Dimension carving, I want to make sure that I don't just repeat the front pattern as there is a wing passing over the other. As with all the other sections of the spoon, I do a quick bit of pencilling to make sure everything is where it should be...THEN I commit to the knives.

Here I cut down a section to separate the back wing from the front wing. Visually, the back one should overlap the little visible section of the front wing just as the reverse has happened on the front of the spoon. Confusing? It can get that way if you don't sketch things out! As I'm only working to 2.5D and not a full on 3D, I will keep the wings as opposite faces of the spoon, rather than trying to separate them completely. If the spoon were a bit thicker and I wasn't concerned about it getting too delicate, I would be inclined to do separated wings. Doing that would leave me with very thin wings which would be extremely susceptible to breakage...probably not a good thing for a dragon who is going to brave the hurly burly of an Eisteddfod evening!

With the facets of the wing marked out and the front portion clearly deliniated, I can start getting set to shape each section of the wing.

I have started to clear out material to create each fold of the wing. I use the bent knife to do the bull work and then smooth things out with a straight knife or with a bent knife with a shallow curve. I like to leave the surface a bit textured as it makes the wing look a bit more lively and a bit less processed than dead smooth faces. I generally cut from the bottom fold and move up to the top of the wing. That way, if I have a knife slip and take a bit off the fold in front, it isn't as calamitous a situation as it is to whack a finished section!

And thar she be. This is far as I will take the wing for the time being. After the spoon is pretty well completed, I'll come back over any rough areas and tidy things up for the final inspection, but this is pretty good for the moment.

These two pictures show the effect I am after with the wings passing over each other. A bit more exciting than 2D but not as dangerous as 3D! But don't despair if you are like a car racing fan who has come to see the pile-ups....I may have got this far unscathed, but there are plenty of opportunities for disaster still to come! It's what makes lovespoon carving the thrilling pastime it is!!

Knot Again!!

2009-06-04T20:08:00.001-07:00

I'm working on cleaning up the Celtic knotwork this week. As with the front face, I plan to only go around the pattern cutting to a shallow depth until I am satisfied that all the 'overs and unders' are correctly placed. As with the vinework lower down, I have to make sure I am doing the exact opposite over under detail to the front face or it gets quiet seriously out of hand.

Once I am satisfied that all is going to plan, I commit to deeper cuts and make the over and under sections much more visible and bold. I generally like to work my way around the entire knot to make sure nothing gets forgotten before I worry too much about cleaning the cuts up too much.

With all the overs and unders cut out, I can start to smooth out the 'ramps' so that the transitions are nice and fair. I also can start putting a light chamfer on the edges to soften out the hard edge of the knot. As with the front of the spoon, I am after a nice, crisp look which isn't too hard. The light chamfer gives the knot a subtle softening but it doesn't round it over so much that the knot takes on the shoelace look.

It's a personal thing which you are quite welcome to disagree with, but I find Celtic knots which have been rounded so much that they look like string or shoelaces have kind of a hokey, 'amateur' look to them. I'm sorry to any I might offend who enjoy that lkind of look, but I always find that excessively rounded knotwork also tends to look excessively worked and to use a theatre expression, rather overwrought! For me, the result is something like I would imagine would happen if Joan Rivers played Ophelia in Hamlet.

It really only needs the subtlest of chamfers to really soften the look and to lighten up the knotwork.

In the following couple of pictures, I hope to show some approaches to carving Celtic knotwork with keep the feel of wood rather than making the spoon look like it has been laced up. In this detail, a swirling Celtic spiral opens up and becomes a series of knot interlacings. Here, I have varied the width of the various knot strands to create some tension and to break up the monotony which would occur if they were all identical width.

I often like to vary the width within an individual strand and find that making the knot a bit bulbous as it bends gives it an organic liveliness. I also find when I do my knotwork like this that it has a really nice organic feel almost like it is structured vine. The variations in line width are definitely eye-catching and vibrant!

This final knotwork picture is from a couple of lovely spoons carved by one of my lovespoon heroes, Alun Davies. Alun's knots are stunning for their even, clean line and the beautiful soft doming effect he puts on the upper face. Although the edges of his knots are only ever-so-slightly eased, the effect he achieves is a very square knot which is at the same time extremely soft and 'touchable'. I have yet to see a carver anywhere who can equal his deft touch!

Knotwork is admired and valued for its complexity of pattern, but equally important is the finish. Like so many things, it is often much better to do a simple thing really well than to do a complicated thing half-assed. I recommend to anyone wanting to try their hand at Celtic knotwork to start with some simple ones and work on getting them as clean and vibrant as possible. Once the simple ones look good, move up in difficulty a step or two at a time.

On the subject of a step or two at a time.... I am carving this spoon to raise funds in support of the Left Coast Eisteddfod, a showcase of Welsh culture to be held in Portland Oregon this August 22 weekend. Putting on an event of this calibre isn't easy and any and all support is welcome! If you have been enjoying this blog (and better yet, if you have been learning some carving/designing tricks from it) I hope that you will consider donating a few dollars to help fund what can become an exciting annual event. Every dollar you donate will give you a chance to win the finished Dragon spoon as well as to receive thanks and adoration.

Wooden spoons? What's with that?

2009-05-19T17:17:00.000-07:00

The other day, while she examined some lovespoons I had on display, I overheard a young girl saying to her friend, "Wooden spoons? What's with that?" Sadly, the romance and the whole love message idea of them went right over her head. Even after I valiantly tried to explain the history and meaning of them in a snappy Coles Notes version, I could tell she really didn't get it. Although the rest of the day went much better than that and the majority of visitors to my booth were effusive in their appreciation of the lovespoon tradition, that little girl weighed heavily on my mind. I'm no luddite, but I find it a little bit sad when I encounter people who would rather an Ipod or a bog-standard diamond ring to a wooden gift which has been hand made and is loaded with subtle meaning. I even understand them. Day in and day out we are bombarded with ads and propaganda telling us what to buy and what is in fashion (and let's be honest, handmade wood stuff is not particularly fashionable)...the commercial gift industry is both slick and persuasive...and after all, who wouldn't want an Ipod?

But I'm going to use the spoon shown here today to show you why some 'dime a dozen' mass produced diamond ring which may even have blood on it can NEVER compete with the power of these delicate pieces of wood.

What really makes this spoon special is something that you can't see. Rather than putting together a series of symbols or meaningful images, this spoon was designed to capture a feeling. For the couple who commissioned it, the spoon is a remembrance of a single significant event in a lifetime of memories. For you and I, it is a nice walnut spoon with a cheerful yellow cedar inlay and some nice Celtic knotwork. For them, it is the memory of a long-ago walk on a wintery moonlit night when the promises of a life-long love were made.

The spoon begins with an obvious and easily understood symbol. The heart shaped bowl signifies the unity and strength of their love joined as one. Even to those of us unaware of the true meaning hidden in the spoon, the heart lets us know this spoon is about love. The little diamond above the bowl is another traditonal theme. It is a wish for prosperity, but it indicates the kind of prosperity which doesn't come with money alone. It symbolizes the richness of a full and happy life shared with someone who has won your heart and who has given their heart in return.

Celtic knotwork is a modern addition to the lovespoon vocabulary which is often used to symbolize eternal love. While that is completely relevant on this spoon, the knots here create a valley which the couple gazed down into on that distant night. The valley came to be a significant symbol of separation for the couple when they were parted, but as they are now reunited, so the valley walls are now linked by the knotwork.

The yellow cedar inlay moon is the most significant feature of the design. Inlayed into the centre of the walnut, it is visible behind walnut knotwork from both sides of the spoon. The moon itself is carved with an 'eternal' Celtic knot to symbolize the never-ending nature of their love; its brightness against the dark grain of the walnut a reminder of the brightness and promise of that night. As the light travels down into the valley, the walnut knotwork surrounds it and acts to symbolically carry the moon's light into that winter night.

Could an Ipod or a diamond bring the magic of that night and all the feelings and emotions it holds back to our couple like this wooden spoon has? I seriously doubt it and for that I am thankful that there is wood in the world and the tradition of working it this way.

"Wooden spoons? What's with that?" Sorry kid, you're missing out.

Leaf it off!

2009-05-12T08:30:00.000-07:00

This week I'm continuing my work on the back face of the Left Coast Eisteddfod spoon with more work on the vines and some shaping of the maple leaf and the star.

Before committing to the knives, I am careful to mark the overlaps with a pencil. I also want to draw the path of the vine across the leaf and star so that I can remember to carve it later! Because I want the dragon's tail to be uninterrupted on the front face, I didn't bother with too much over/under where the vines merge into the celtic knot. If I wasn't so interested in keeping the flow of the tail, I could have overlapped these a bit more but it would have broken things up a bit.

With the lines penciled out, I use my small straight knife held also in a pencil grip to scribe the lines to a depth of approximately 1/16th of an inch. This keeps the sides of the vines pretty vertical, marks out the path of the vines and gives me a line to start cutting against when I start lowering the leaf and the star.

In this picture I have begun cutting down the leaf using the straight cut along the vine as both a guide and stopping point. With my leaves, I resist the urge to really thin them down as my spoons are generally subjected to regular handling and an excessively thin leave becomes a breaking hazard. I try to achieve the illusion the spoon is thin by tapering toward the edges, but I still leave enough thickness that the leaf can handle rough treatment. When the spoon is viewed from the front or back, the leaf will look pretty thin and 'flowing', but when viewed from the side it will be apparant that it is a bit more substantial.

If I knew the spoon wouldn't be touched, I would thin foliage details to the very minimum. However, handling these spoons is part of their pleasure, so sometimes a little aesthetic sacrifice has to occur for the guarantee of security!

With the leaf, star and vines roughed out, I can begin to define things a bit. The vines start getting rounded over and the leaf will get a bit of texturing as it is thinned out. I'm rounding each leg of the star a bit to give it a softer feel than the more 'sheriff's badge' look the front face has and to give the back of the spoon a more organic feel.

This picture shows the 'organic' section of the spoon nearly completed. Once the rest of the spoon is complete, I'll return to this area for a final touch-up and to do some last minute shaping and sanding of the rounded edges on the vines.
I hope that you have been enjoying this little blog and that following the creation of this spoon will encourage you to donate to the Left Coast Eisteddfod. It's easy to do and might win you this spoon!

Staying Inside the Vines

2009-04-28T22:05:00.000-07:00

This week I'll climb down off the soapbox for a while and will get some carving done on the vine section of the Eisteddfod spoon.

I'm going to carve the back of this spoon quite extensively so that it is pretty much the equal of the front. I think that especially with vine and Celtic knot patterns, the look of the spoon is vastly improved when both sides are done. Now because there is an over and under pattern to the vine, I am going over it carefully with a pencil to mark out the pattern before I commit to the knife. It's REALLY easy to get things out of order on the back, especially since you have to think about what is happening on the front and then do the exact opposite. It's always a lot easier to erase a pencil line than to have to repair a errant cut, so the couple of minutes I spend with the graffite is time well spent!

With the lines marked and double-checked, I go at it with the straight knife and with the small chisel. My cuts are shallow at first but get progressively deeper once I know the pattern is all cut correctly.

With the over under pattern cut away and the sharp edges of the vines eased with some chamfer cuts, it is time to round the edges more vigourously. I use cloth backed abrasive paper for this job, BUT I never touch sandpaper to the project until I am fully confident that I won't need to do any more knife carving. All abrasive papers leave behind microscopic bits of abrasive grit which gets lodged in the wood being sanded. When the knife blade passes through this buried grit, its razor sharp edge is quickly dulled and ruined.

With the rounding completed, I use progressively finer grades of abrasive paper to take out any scratches and leave the surface almost finished. Because the cloth backed abrasive has been largely used across the wood's grain, often times lots of scratches will remain which have to be taken out for the piece to look attractive. Never use a coarser grade than 150 cloth backed abrasive on your project or you will be left with deep scratches that are murder to remove. With paper abrasives, follow the direction of the grain and work up to 220 grade for a nice silky, smooth finish.

The vines and back of the bowls are now nearly completed. I will do a final shaping and sanding immediately prior to finishing, but for now this will be good.
Speaking of being good...please be good by donating a couple of dollars to the Left Coast Eisteddfod and helping the idea of a fabulous Welsh cultural event become a reality. All donations, big or small are gratefully received and all enter you in the running to win this lovespoon when it is finished and presented on August 22 in Portland Oregon

Win a Copy of David's Book!

2009-04-20T13:16:00.000-07:00

Fine Woodworking is running a contest to win a copy of David's Book, Fine Art of Carving Lovespoons here:

http://finewoodworking.taunton.com/item/12084/book-giveaway-fine-art-of-carving-lovespoons

All you have to do to be in the running is leave a comment!

2009-04-20T10:02:00.000-07:00

This week you'd have to be living under a rock not to have heard about the sensation caused by Scottish spinster and remarkable songstress Susan Boyle. Her magical turn in front of noted misery-guts and all-round sourpuss Simon Cowell has been the hit of the internet and the subject of world-wide water cooler chit chat.

As terrific as that was though, it's worth considering that at this very moment, the greatest tenor of all time could be tending a flock in the Bolivian highlands while the sweetest soprano to have ever sung a note could be spreading asphalt in Tibet. The next Picasso could be plowing a field in the Ukraine while a novelist of rare insight is building I.E.D's for the Taliban. How many millions of glorious musicians, artists and visionary thinkers has mankind lost over the centuries to anonymity, lack of opportunity or disinterest? That Susan Boyle existed out there with her beautiful voice going unnoticed is not in the least unusual...that millions of us were able to share in and enjoy her moment in the sun was.

So where in the hell am I going with this? As a carver and artist, I know that many times success is not so much a matter of talent and ingenuity as it is a matter of good fortune. In the case of Susan Boyle, the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to appear on television in front of millions of strangers has been the difference between fame and obscurity. For the Bolivian shepherd and his ilk, there will likely be no such chance. Without the chance to perform for an audience, talent is never noticed, which finally brings me to the point of this rather long-winded preamble.

In August, the Left Coast Eisteddfod will make its inaugural appearance as a cultural event. Without support, events of this kind do not succeed and the opportunity to present a platform for talent both known and undiscovered is lost. Somewhere out there could be the next great author, poet, photographer, swashbuckling pirate, or leather-lunged Tom Jones...this is your opportunity to help find them!

I have donated the Left Coast Eisteddfod lovespoon as a way to help make donating to this worthy event a bit more enjoyable. For every dollar you donate, you get a chance to win the spoon when it is completed and presented at the Eisteddfod. As a Welshman working a traditional (and somewhat obscure) craft thousands of miles from 'home', I have enjoyed wonderful good fortune bringing my work to a larger audience. I hope that the small part I play in helping to raise funds for the Left Coast Eisteddfod will make it possible for others to display their talents too.

Finally, even if you can't donate financially at this time, consider supporting the Eisteddfod by mentioning it to people you know, by trying your hand at some of the online competitions and by attending the event on August 21 and 22 in Portland, Oregon.

Forward to the Back!

2009-04-10T11:40:00.000-07:00

With the front of the Eisteddfod Spoon largely completed, it's time to focus some energy on the back. I'm a firm believer in making the back of the spoon as beautiful as the front...even if it is going to hang on a wall and only be viewed from one angle. It takes more time and effort and increases the chances of a break or accident, BUT the result is always a much more beautiful and tactile piece. Sometimes, as a professional carver, my client's budgets don't stretch to doing both sides and they wish me to concentrate my efforts on the front only. Even in those cases, I like to try to do some shaping of the back to lend the spoon a bit more elegance.

As you can see from this close-up, the back is currently pretty flat and monotonous, even though the majority of the design outline is clearly visible and the spoon is 'coming to life'. By shaping up the back, I'll not only get a more beautiful product when the spoon is handled and turned over, but the shadows cast by the undulations and curves I plan to create will give the spoon more 'life' and appeal when it hangs on the wall. Lovespoons are an artwork which begs to be handled. Unlike some arts which can be discoloured and marred by the oils of the hand, the lovespoon inevitably profits from regular handling. Over the course of many years, a rich patina builds up and the spoon takes on a lovely vibrant glow which is impossible to replicate solely with the finishes. In this modern age of half-assed manufacturing, where virtually everything we get has had corners cut somewhere or other, it is always a lovely surprise to find the back of the spoon as nicely finished as the front.

But before you go thinking I'm getting all arty-farty and precious about this, I can assure you that doing the back of the spoon also often gives me the opportunity to break out the beloved angle grinder! I LOVE to make all kinds of noise and dust every once in a while and the angle grinder is great for both! Although I spend most of my carving time serenaded by the eloquent strains of Mozart from the cd player and alone in contemplative thought...the high pitched scream of a wound-up grinder hogging its way along can be music to my headphone covered ears!! But a warning: Kids, do NOT try this at home or anywhere else until you have lots of experience! The grinder is a great tool for removing awkward wood in a great hurry, but it is equally good at destroying your project and quite possibly removing your fingers or whole hand. This is NOT a tool to handle lightly. For me, it is a highly efficient time saving wonder, but sometimes it is an extremely fickle mistress. On this spoon it will help me put some arc and curve into the wood and it will deal with some tangled grain sections; hopefully it will do this without blowing the whole project to smithereens!

As the wood is shaped, the spoon will become both physically and visually lighter and the final look will start to emerge. Here's a little close-up of what the angle grinder can quickly achieve. More next week as we start shaping the vines and finishing off the already shaped bowl backs.

If you haven't yet contributed to the Eisteddfod, please consider doing so today! You can win this spoon!!