Spoon Carving class in North Carolina


I'm really excited about teaching a Breton spoon carving class at Elia Bizzarri's place in Hillsborough, NC in July.  We will be making the gorgeous one-pieces shapes based on spoons from the Pays de Vannetais and Pays de Cornouille in Brittany.


We decided to make the course over three days so people can really get the feel of these simple and elegant spoons that were made here in Brittany in the 1800's without having to rush.

We shall start in the forest and select a suitable tree, fell it and make spoon blanks using axe, saw and drawknife.  I will take people through the step-by-step process, with help to master the various axe techniques and knife grips along the way.

Once your spoons are carved, there will be a day to decorate your spoon. Traditionally these spoons were decorated using intricate chip-carving that was then filled with a hard wax inlay to give a brightly coloured pattern. This pattern often covered the top, bottom and both sides of the spoon handles.


 Of course, you can choose to use a simpler or more modern pattern for your spoon!

For those who are more experienced, there will be the chance to try your hand at making one of the astonishing and  intricate one-piece spoons that can still be seen in museums in Brittany. These spoons often had their neck split into multiple strands to look like ropes! You can read more about these multi-strand spoons on an earlier blog just here.


The week before I will be teaching this class, Pete and I will be taking a week with Curtis Buchanan to learn about making his beautiful democratic chairs.

We saw Curtis demonstrating how these gorgeous chairs are made at Greenwood Fest last year and we fell in love with them (and him!). So its going to be a very exciting trip!








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Paroirs de sabotier - French clogmakers knives

Image
These tools were part of a collection and are all in beautiful condition, with no rust at all. Some are almost unused. The man selling them wanted them to go to people who will use them. They all need a good sharpening, and most need the handles replacing as many have woodworm and some are broken. They will normally be shipped with the handles removed (I can omit the handle completely if you want, and include photographs for reference for making replacements). All have ferrules. I think the prices I am asking are fair. Yes you can get them cheaper on french internet sites, but I’ve never seen them in such good condition, and you’ll have difficulty getting them shipped!! This gives me a small profit for my time and hassle and covers my expenses (packaging and Paypal). Shipping Shipping will be by French Parcel post, which is the least expensive option I can find. Shipping prices are for tracked parcels. For UK buyers, I can post in the UK which is marginally cheaper, but sadly
Read more

Old, everyday Breton spoons

Image
In the breton countryside nearly everyone had a wooden spoon and perhaps a knife to eat their simple diet of soup, pottage, vegetables and stew - a spoon was often a peasant’s only personal possession.  These everyday spoons were kept in a porte-cuillères, (Breton: parheiler, English: spoon rack) that was usually hung from the ceiling or stood on a table. This photo is of a plain porte-cuillère  in my collection, with the spoons it came with, from a cottage in the village of Guerlesquin in Finistère. Porte-cuillères were a practical storage method to keep spoons dry, aired and relatively clean in a small cottage. At the end of a meal each person would lick their spoon clean, perhaps even wipe it on a sleeve and then replace it in the porte-cuillères, which could often then be raised up out of the way by means of a counter weighted pulley. In this way it was possible to allow the spoon to air dry - avoiding the development of mold. It also, in theory, prevented mice and other
Read more

teaching how to make folding spoons

Image
It’s that time of the year again, the summer round of green woodworking festivals is about to kick off. I shall be going to the Spoon gathering at Milan, Minnesota, where I’ll be teaching a pre-fest course making and decorating Breton-style one-piece spoons. Then back to Greenwood Fest in Massachusetts the following week. It’s here I’ll be teaching making a folding spoon for the pre-fest course. This is going to be the only time i teach this course this year. The two presentations of the same course that I gave last year were great fun, if a little shattering for me! The skills needed by course participants are not particularly high, but there is a great deal of precise detail for me to to explain, so I don’t get any let-up for the two and a half days of each course. I quickly learnt which processes needed lots more explanation, or just needed to be described differently. However, both courses went very well, with everyone managing to successfully make their own folding spoon. Some
Read more