The Lovespoon Carver's Craft at St Fagans

Come and meet two of the finest lovespoon carvers currently promoting the craft across Wales and beyond. Siôn Llewellyn of Bridgend and David Western, originally from Cardiff and now living in Canada, are both passionate about their art and ensuring that an age-old tradition remains fresh and vibrant in modern-day life.

Siôn was recently commissioned by the Museum to create exact replicas of a number of spoons in the collections and these will be on sale during the event. David will be promoting his recent books, History of Lovespoons and Fine Art of Carving Lovespoonswhich prominently feature many of the spoons housed at St Fagans.

Call in to the Museum Shop to see them at work between 11-1 and 2-4pm at the National History Museum of Wales at St Fagans. (near Cardiff, Wales)

I'm VERY excited to be appearing with fellow carver Siôn Llewellyn at the museum which is home to one of the finest collections of lovespoons in the world, and I hope that if you are in the area on May 26th, you'll stop in to say hello!!

Here Be Dragons

The Welsh Flag

I love the Welsh flag.  As national flags go, the Driag Goch (Red Dragon) much certainly rate as one of the most eye-catching on the planet.  Combine it with the beautifully poignant and melodious national anthem "Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau" and the Welsh are blessed with a bounty of epic national symbols!

But I confess that on lovespoons, the poor old flag dragon has been done to death.  All the mass production and tourist type spoons which feature a dragon inevitably have the flag dragon tacked onto the design and looking awkward and out of place.   

There are other, much more expressive, beautiful and unique ways to feature the Driag Goch and to make the most of his symbolic power as the mascot of Cymru.

So here are a couple of dragons which I think still promote Welshness and Welsh pride but without the cliche of looking exactly like every other dragon that's ever been carved on a spoon!
 

Sino-Celtic Wedding spoon

Like the Welsh, the Chinese recognize the symbolic power of the dragon.  This wedding spoon unites the two very different dragons around a ming dynasty knot pattern.  The flowing dragons with their sinuous tails give the spoon movement, vibrancy and great 'life'.  The very different design styles compliment each other very nicely too!

Here's a dragon which is much more traditional in its form although it looks quite stylized.  It's a very simple rendering which emphasizes the simple wings, tail and the long tongue, but it is still a powerful image (as a dragon should be!).

This dragon is much more Nordic in appearance.  Carved for a spoon celebrating Odinist and Wiccan beliefs, this spoon has a very 'Viking' feel about it.  The long neck and shield-like wings of the dragon evoke the image of a Viking longship's prow...the merging of a variety of art styles harks back to the time when Viking and Celtic art forms met for the first time.

These stylish and very romantic dragons were created from ancient Celtic zoomorphic forms.  Originally, they lacked the wings and the knotwork tongues and probably weren't intended as dragons at all.  But their lizard-like faces, long necks and sinuous bodies were perfect models for this modern update of very ancient images.  

These last two images show a dragon that I have been developing over the last couple of years.  I've used him several times on a variety of spoons and am very fond of him!   I'll probably continue experimenting with him a few more times until I think I've used up my ideas...then I will come up with something else.   He's a lovely dragon though.  Neither overly aggressive or too passive, he makes a perfect crown for a spoon design and the knot his head and neck enfold can be kept as a 'closed' eternal knot, or it can be run from his tongue to form a Celtic knot style 'flame' or tongue.


There are no doubt more dragon designs yet to be discovered than I have time to carve in my lifetime, so I very much doubt that I will ever need to resort to the flag dragon to get my message of Welsh pride out!!

Luuuuuuv Tsunami

I've had a couple of pretty intense commissions on the go lately.  I like to have several spoons on the go at once because it lets me move from spoon to spoon and 'stay fresh'.   With something like carving, I find it is very easy to get hyper-focussed and hit a point where I no longer see what is right in front of my nose.   By spending an hour or two on each spoon then moving to a different design and different tasks, I find that I can more clearly stay on top of things.  Often,  I will also carve a more whimsical design to 'lighten things up' a bit and as a way to relax between more complicated projects.

The "Love Tsunami" is one of those spoons.   Inspired by a Japanese woodcut of a towering wave, I wanted to design a spoon which had a solid but liquid feel on one side (if that makes any sense at all!!!) and a an airy 'wafty' feel to the other.  I wanted the wave to curl over a pair of hearts which 'roll with flow'

seemingly tossed by the wave, but remaining resolutely joined despite whatever comes along.  The rich cherry wood with its delightful flecks of colour and strong grain intensify the watery feel of the design.

I also wanted this lovespoon to be very sculptural and a touch abstract.   I wanted to portray a wave, but beyond that, I wanted some of the other details to be open to a bit more interpretation.  Is this a half heart or a more gently cresting wave, is it the sandy shore which represents a safe harbour for our wave tossed hearts or a sleek raven watching the scene unfold below?  I know what it is for me, but it could be any of those things and more for other viewers.

But I confess, I can't help myself with the romantic stuff!!!  The spoon seemed to work with this lovely double heart motif which I have used on several other of my spoons.   I think it is both expressive and symbolic and I never grow tired of carving them!  What can I say, it's a luuuuuvspoon!

Granted, this spoon won't appeal to everyone, in fact, it might not appeal to anyone.  But I'll put it on the wall and I'll enjoy it!  And maybe one day that person will come along who falls in love with it.