Spoon Carving Gathering - 2009
At:
Milan Village Arts School - June 6th, 2009 - 9am to ??
P.O. Box 230, Milan, MN 56262,  Ph. 320.734.4807
  Email: mvas@fedteldirect.net ,     www.milanvillageartsschool.org


Milan Village Arts School hosted the second annual Spoon Carving
Gathering on June 6, 7, & 8th, 2008.  Many thanks to all of you who came
and made this such an instructional and fun event.  The next spoon
gathering will also be at Milan so be sure to mark your calendars for
June 6th, 2009 and check back here for more details as information
becomes available.

MVAS instructors, Jim Sannerud and Frank Foltz organized
the first get-together of spoon carvers in 2007 for fun, camaraderie, and
to provide an opportunity for carvers to share their techniques and skills
with those of a similar passion for wood carving. Meet with skilled
practitioners of traditional spoon carving, as well as other folk
arts as this event continues the fine tradition bringing skilled crafts people
together for the reviving and advancement of quality crafts
. 




Spoon Mania
Norman Stevens

My passion for collecting contemporary hand made wooden spoons, which began
almost 40 years ago, arises from my appreciation of various aspects of the work that lies
behind them and a respect for the craftsmen who create them. Designed, for the most part,
as functional utensil, a finely crafted spoon demonstrates in its design, shape, and lines a
sense of beauty and style. Above all, such a spoon fits in one’s hand as though it truly
belongs there especially if it has been carefully finished in an almost mirror-like fashion. In
addition, spoons can be created from an almost unlimited species of wood and individual
pieces of the same wood are often distinctly different in appearance. To my mind, the
creation of a wooden spoon brings its maker into closer contact with his material than is the
case with any other craft. Often the dedicated spoon maker either cuts down the tree from
which he will make a spoon, or in other ways works as closely as possible from his raw
material. That sense of closeness to wood is indeed often a reflection of a spoon maker’s
life style that involves living close to, if not off, the land. I have a special regard for the work
of those who create their spoons using only hand tools.

While my wife, Nora, and I collect a variety of crafts, I have focused increasingly on
wooden spoons in recent years. My first spoons were ones made by Dan Dustin whom I
met at the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen’s annual fair in the early 1970s. Later, at
other craft fairs, I met and acquired work by other spoon makers including Barry Gordon
and Norm Sartorius. It was, in fact, a long-term project with Barry Gordon that led to my
current obsession with spoons. After buying a large cherry ladle from Barry in 1984, I
learned that he had made it from a large burl and arranged with him to acquire every utensil
that he made from that burl. When the last of those pieces was finished in 2004, I suggested
to Barry the possibility of a small project in which I might get the ten or twelve spoon
makers that I then knew to make me a spoon from another large burl. When the logistics
proved too difficult to pursue that project, I turned instead to my current project in which,
over the past three years, I have been building a collection of spoons created by
contemporary makers throughout the world. Bound only by my size requirement (9” long
– a length that feels especially comfortable in my hand), more than one hundred craftsmen
have already created spoons for me and I have at least as many more who have agreed to
do so. Each spoon is unique, each has a distinctive character, and almost every spoon brings
along its own story whether it be of the tree or wood from which it was made, the maker’s
background, or a special anecdote. Thanks in large part to the Internet, and information
provided by spoon makers, I have identified more than three hundred contemporary spoon
makers when I thought originally that there might be a few dozen. Best of all, thanks in
large part to e-mail, I have managed to develop a friendship with a significant number of
them. I believe that I am building an unmatched representative collection of a major body
of work created by craftsmen working in a particular media and form.

I am in the process of documenting my collection by creating a list of all the spoon makers
I have identified, maintaining files of correspondence with and information about them,
carefully labeling each spoon, creating a catalog with entries for each spoon as it becomes
part of my collection, and working towards photographing each spoon. I am also exploring
ways of sharing my passion for spoons and this project with others. That includes
participation in the Milan Village Arts School’s Wooden Spoon Carvers’ Gathering on June
6-8, 2008.

Norman D. Stevens
143 Hanks Hill Road
Storrs, CT 06268
860-429-7051
normanstevens@mac.com