I will be at the Norfolk Farmers Market this weekend selling my wares. Hope to see you there!
I will be at the Norfolk Farmers Market this weekend selling my wares. Hope to see you there!
I carved this serving spoon/ladle from a red maple branch a friend of mine had cut. It had a beautiful curve to it which I followed with the spoons shape. Red Maple is sometimes called soft maple, and it is when compared to Sugar Maple, though its still pretty hard. Red Maple can get brown streaks in it as you see here. Sometime they occur throughout a section of wood and is referred to as ambrosia maple by woodworkers.
I made these two little eating spoons out of the same black birch log. It’s amazing to me how complex a thing trees are. The darker of the two was from the heart wood and the lighter the sapwood. And they are quite thin, not much more than a millimeter in the bowl and end of the handle, and still plenty strong enough to do their job. Birches are flexible, strong trees that can bend a great deal under the weight of snow and not break. I often see small birches with their tops bent all the way to the ground under a heavy snow.
These spoons are the smallest I have made and took just as long as the biggest ladle due to the complexity of the design necessary for a good eating spoon (the picture does not show this well as you cannot see the profile, I’ll do better next time) and their thinness.
Working with natural material that are harvested personally is one of the best ways I know to connect with ones local landscape.
Big changes for me, back in Connecticut to stay and a refocusing my career. To facilitate my art and craft I have created a Patreon page to gather support in the old style of Patron and Artist. Follow this link to find out more Forest Wolf.
I am also combining my natural history and wilderness skills endeavors onto this blog and my other Forest Wolf platforms. The fate of Three Red Trees remains to be seen, certainly a new name or absorption into Forest Wolf altogether. I will still do the work of Nature Connection, how can I not, and the Cattail Gathering will continue.
Stay tuned here for images of my work and wildlife and animal tracks.
Thank you all for your support.