I tweet!
Too many posts get left unpublished! so i am moving towards publishing my words and pictures on twitter instead of here.
This will keep you up to date with what i am doing, thinking, and working on. For example "right now i am listening to Fleet foxes - Helplessness Blues...an album that almost feels as if it were written for me" or "Spoon greatness is always just a little dance away, maybe this time the spoon gods will bless me" if you wish to hear such drivel on a regular basis click on the link below and follow.
My twitter account is here and is what many of you are looking for. https://twitter.com/barnthespoon
For those of you interested in my real work (Spoons) the best way to be involved is to visit my shop. It is hard to filter my customers, it isn't difficult to sell spoons, what i want is the best for my spoons that they will go to households where they'll be well used and loved. An increasing number of people come to the shop to meet me because they think I've got a cool story and aren't really interested in spoons, this immediately puts them in conflict with me as this is quite the opposite to how I feel...filter yourselves out now.
We are witnessing a remarkable "Wood Culture Renaissance" as an established worker within this field I forget quite how new this is to the wider public. It is my plan that at the vanguard of the Wood Culture Renaissance should be Axes and Knives brandishing hand carved wooden spoons with all their woodlore splendour. It is a fact that if you can do great work with an axe and knife you will have no problem working with the more modern tools such as planes, scrapers etc, cutting a dovetail is just primary school maths and moving a saw in a straight line! It is no coincidence that courters of yesteryear would carve spoons to impress their courted (i am still waiting for a woman to try her spoon on me!), i am now laying down the gauntlet if you can't make a good functioning spoon with an axe and knife in less than an hour you're not a woodworker!
I am a fan of positive competition, and have not kept secret one of my main aims in setting up Spoonfest with my good friend Robin Wood (we're at the start of the video below splitting the woood) was to greatly increase the knowledge base in my craft, I encourage competition because it drives me higher and without sounding too weird and pretentious i think the spoons deserve it, I got bored of having to look in museums to see woodwork that impressed me, now i really do believe the greatest woodworking cultures are ahead of us!
It really was an amazing summer and i am hugely grateful to those that made Spoonfest such a great success. It is a beautiful thing to have so many spoon lovers all in a field together. Thanks also to Jogge and Beth for inviting me over to Sweden for Taljfest it was awesome.
Favourite memories of summer:
In a late night spoon conversation confiding in fellow spoon nut that sometimes i stand my spoons up and pretend they're like little people pushing their proud chests forward, he replied that frequently he bathes with his spoons and has them dipping in and out of the water like dolphins.
On talking to one of my closest spoony friends i told him of my embarrassment at how crap the photos i took for my talk at Taljfest were, i was really worried having been asked to talk at such a prestigious craft centre in Sweden, he said that it would be fine and anyhow he was sick of going to great talks with their beautiful photos (i understand what he means).
This will keep you up to date with what i am doing, thinking, and working on. For example "right now i am listening to Fleet foxes - Helplessness Blues...an album that almost feels as if it were written for me" or "Spoon greatness is always just a little dance away, maybe this time the spoon gods will bless me" if you wish to hear such drivel on a regular basis click on the link below and follow.
My twitter account is here and is what many of you are looking for. https://twitter.com/barnthespoon
For those of you interested in my real work (Spoons) the best way to be involved is to visit my shop. It is hard to filter my customers, it isn't difficult to sell spoons, what i want is the best for my spoons that they will go to households where they'll be well used and loved. An increasing number of people come to the shop to meet me because they think I've got a cool story and aren't really interested in spoons, this immediately puts them in conflict with me as this is quite the opposite to how I feel...filter yourselves out now.
We are witnessing a remarkable "Wood Culture Renaissance" as an established worker within this field I forget quite how new this is to the wider public. It is my plan that at the vanguard of the Wood Culture Renaissance should be Axes and Knives brandishing hand carved wooden spoons with all their woodlore splendour. It is a fact that if you can do great work with an axe and knife you will have no problem working with the more modern tools such as planes, scrapers etc, cutting a dovetail is just primary school maths and moving a saw in a straight line! It is no coincidence that courters of yesteryear would carve spoons to impress their courted (i am still waiting for a woman to try her spoon on me!), i am now laying down the gauntlet if you can't make a good functioning spoon with an axe and knife in less than an hour you're not a woodworker!
I am a fan of positive competition, and have not kept secret one of my main aims in setting up Spoonfest with my good friend Robin Wood (we're at the start of the video below splitting the woood) was to greatly increase the knowledge base in my craft, I encourage competition because it drives me higher and without sounding too weird and pretentious i think the spoons deserve it, I got bored of having to look in museums to see woodwork that impressed me, now i really do believe the greatest woodworking cultures are ahead of us!
It really was an amazing summer and i am hugely grateful to those that made Spoonfest such a great success. It is a beautiful thing to have so many spoon lovers all in a field together. Thanks also to Jogge and Beth for inviting me over to Sweden for Taljfest it was awesome.
Favourite memories of summer:
In a late night spoon conversation confiding in fellow spoon nut that sometimes i stand my spoons up and pretend they're like little people pushing their proud chests forward, he replied that frequently he bathes with his spoons and has them dipping in and out of the water like dolphins.
On talking to one of my closest spoony friends i told him of my embarrassment at how crap the photos i took for my talk at Taljfest were, i was really worried having been asked to talk at such a prestigious craft centre in Sweden, he said that it would be fine and anyhow he was sick of going to great talks with their beautiful photos (i understand what he means).