Spoon Carving Gathering - 2008
At:
Milan Village Arts School - June, 6,7, & 8th
P.O. Box 230, Milan, MN 56262, Ph. 320.734.4807
Email: mvas@fedteldirect.net , www.milanvillageartsschool.org
Fri., Jun 6th - 1 PM to ?, Sat., Jun 7th - 9 AM to ?, Sun., Jun 9th - 9 AM to 1 PM
Milan Village Arts School hosts the second annual Spoon Carving Gathering on June 6, 7, & 8th, 2008. MVAS instructors, Jim Sannerud, Fred
Livesay, and Frank Foltz have organized an annual get-together of spoon
carvers for fun, camaraderie, and to provide an opportunity for carvers to share
their techniques and skills with those with a similar passion for wood carving.
Meet with skilled practitioners of traditional spoon carving, as well as other folk
arts and crafts. See just a few of the planned demos below (other spontaneous
demos will be announced at the event).
Entrance Fee for adults is only $10.00 for the entire event or any part
of it.
Children 12 and under are free! Pay at the door, no pre-registration
necessary, but if you can call ahead and let the Milan Village Arts School
know how many are coming, it would help greatly with planning - THANKS!
Primitive camping is included in the registration fee, however, all RV campers will need to use one of the nearby private or state park RV
campsites. Primitive campers will need to remove vehicles from camping
area after unloading. Because this event is within the city limits of Milan,
we have fire regulations to observe. No personal fires will be allowed, but
a barbeque grille or campstove is allowed for cooking. We are working on
a permit to have a community fire for Friday and Saturday night.
Location: On the grass playground behind the old public school in Milan. Housing: Contact MVAS for housing options. Questions: Call Ardie at 320.734.4807
Area Attraction and restaurants: Info on local restaurants, stores, and local attractions will be available at the event. The highlight of this event will be a brief presentation by well known spoon collector, Norman Stevens, of his international collection of
contemporary handcrafted spoons from around the world. Norman and
Nora Stevens hail from Storrs, CT and have done much to promote the art
of hand carved spoons over the past decades. Our hearty thanks to them
for their encouragement and for graciously coming at their own expence
and vacation time to make this collection available to us. You won’t want
to miss what I am sure will be a display of some amazing spoons from
around the world. Scroll down to read more about their love and
appreciation for hand carved spoons. Normans presentation will be in the
Gymnasium on Saturday morning at 9am.
You can expect to see other great collections and fine spoons on display, including a collection of 200 welch love spoons by Robert Bredeson. There will
be some hand forged metal spoons by Tom Latane and spoons in the
Scandinavian tradition by Jon Strom, Tom Dengler, Fred Livesay and other fine
carvers.
Other carvings and crafts will also be displayed or demonstrated. While this is not a sales event, demonstrators will have some of their fine arts and
crafts available for sale and those in the historic encampment may have “trade
blankets” out. Pinewood Forge will have carving knives and supplies available
for sale.
Schedule of Events:
Friday, June 6, 1:00 p.m. - Registration begins
Friday afternoon and evening - Carving, crafts, ball game, potluck dinner,
folk music / music jam and bon fire - bring your instruments for jamming
opportunities throughout the weekend.
Saturday, June 7, 9 a.m. - Presentation of international spoon collection
by Norman Stevens in Gymnasium.
Saturday - 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. - Free demonstrations, see community
blackboard for times and places.
Saturday - 6:30 p.m. Local Foods Dinner at school cafeteria, $10.00 fee
helps support the school
Saturday - 8 p.m. Jerry Ostensoe and others will be providing music
Sunday - Open time for carving, jaming, visiting, demos, etc. Check out by
1 p.m.
In case of rain…..events will be held in the old Milan school gym
Demonstrations
Official demos below will be on Saturday from 10 am to 5:30 pm, though other spontaneous demos may be available throughout the weekend. Check the
blackboard at the event for updates and times for all demos.
Dennis Chilcote - Traditional broom making
Tom Dengler - Scandinavian shrink boxes
Frank Foltz - Beginning spoon carving, kolrosing
Karen Henderson - Whimsical bark carving
Bill Jaeger - Scandinavian figure carving
Tom Latane - Blacksmith decorative filing and chasing
Fred Livesay - Spoon carving, decorative boxes
Jon Strom - Swedish style hand carved bowls
Del Stubbs - Sharpening
For additional info go to http://www.milanvillageartsschool.org/spoon_gathering
or http://www.spoonsofwood.com/SpoonGathering.html
More questions: conact MVAS at mvas@fedteldirect.net or Frank Foltz at
frankfoltz@usfamily.net.
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
