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ABOUT ME

Spoon carving. It all started the day an ash tree in front of my apartment dropped some branches during a bad storm. After the weather let up something told me to go down and grab a branch and make something. With an old Case pocket knife and some coarse sandpaper I carved my first spoon. I still have the ugly thing. Looks more like a corn cob pipe than it does a spoon. But from that ugliness came an obsession: spoon carving. I have no idea why I am here on planet earth but when I have a piece of black walnut wood in one hand and my Mora knife in the other all the existential anxiety that I backpack around seems to soften. This is a good thing. So each spoon that I carve has a piece of me deep inside its fibers. They are not just spoons to me. They are my wood babies. But like all children they must one day leave the nest. I only ask that my spoons go to a good home.

From beginning to end it takes me between 5-8 hours to finish a spoon. I carve slow. Often taking breaks just to admire the grain or to take in its lovely scent. The whole time fully aware of the life this soon-to-be spoon once lived. As a beautiful tree. Still and calm. In the heat. In the cold. And now in my hands. And maybe one day in yours. From design to the final buffing I find the whole process meditative. I only wish this fell upon me years ago.

I use Mora knives: a straight and a crook. And to keep these knives sharp I use Shapton Glass Stones. I now only work with black walnut. For some odd reason I feel connected to this species.

three dot spoons...

hand carved wooden spoons

Hello,

Welcome to my spoon world. These are some of my wood babies. They are hand carved using a straight knife and a hook knife. I then use sandpaper to give them their smoothness. I finish them off with Howard's Butcher Block Conditioner, this gives them a nice sheen. Each spoon takes about 5 - 7 hours to complete. While I'm carving them I often think of their past lives as parts of a tree and all that they endured: the cold, the heat, the rain, the snow and the wind. This brings me close to them. This is my connection with nature. THIS is why my hands touch knife and wood. Send me an e-mail if you see one you like.

And lastly...much love goes out to the people on retreat at Hope Springs Institute who have purchased one of my spoons. THANK YOU SO MUCH! IT REALLY MEANS A LOT.

Dave K.

threedotspoons@yahoo.com