Greenwood Spoon Carving with Charles Thompson

Spend a week in shop, forest, and field learning how to make a spoon from a tree.

Carving spoons from green wood sparks a conversation between material, environment, and handwork. Our goal will be to develop and convene carving processes that can be carried forward. We’ll do this work over tea, observational hikes, snacks, and with any luck good idle chatter.

For most of the week, our focus will be on carving from branch-to-spoon with the carving axe and sloyd knife. We’ll also be introduced to working with edged-tools like drawknives, spokeshaves, gouges, and the clog-maker’s knife. Throughout the week, we’ll learn several styles of spoons stemming from different kinds of materials, including foraged branches, riven straight stock, and steambent blanks. After we have a few spoons in our pockets, we’ll learn decorative techniques like chip carving and milk painting.

The capstone of the class will be assembling our own sloyd knife and bark sheath.