When I was a boy growing up on a farm in Michigan, I received my first pocketknife during the summer before my seventh birthday.  Copying my grandfather’s motions, I was soon whittling like a pro.  I loved the feel of the wood beneath my fingers as I worked it smooth with my knife.  As a teenager, I took shop class, where I learned to make shelves and tables, sanding them with ever finer grades of sandpaper until there were no splinters or rough spots.  My finished products were works of art, proudly presented to family members.

As an adult, I worked in a highly technical field, but I still enjoyed the feel of good wood beneath my fingers and the warmth it lends to a room.  I tried and discarded many hobbies until I determined that I wanted to work with wood again.  One day, my wife showed me a newspaper article about a man who made wooden spoons.  I took a piece of firewood and created my first wooden spoon.  It still hangs in my workshop to remind me of several things.  First, I must be careful to pick my wood carefully, avoiding the pieces that will split.  I must also learn to let the grain of the wood dictate the shape and function of the spoon.  Finally, I must be patient as I work with the wood so that it can communicate with me.  That’s how I learned that one spoon which was in the final stages of sanding contained a wood-boring worm.  I removed the worm and finished the spoon, being careful to leave the worm’s canal.

I needed a source of wood besides my fireplace woodpile.  Fortunately, there was a wood kiln right in town that specialized in Appalachian hardwoods.  From them, I obtained walnut, curly walnut, tiger walnut, hard maple, ambrosia maple, curly maple, spalted maple, tiger maple, persimmon, osage orange, holly, sycamore, sassafras, white oak, cherry, curly cherry, and tiger cherry.  Although some of the woods were heartwoods, others were not, but all are exciting to work with.  I also work with exotic woods, such as coco bolo, purple heart, and bloodwood.

Michelangelo once said that he needed to know a piece of marble very well before he could determine which statue it contained.  Working with wood is like that.  My best spoons come from the pieces of wood that I have studied until I knew them and then created the spoons that they contained.  Although many of my spoons are utilitarian in nature, there are also many that are truly works of art.  Because each wood is unique, no two spoons are identical.  Like people, each has its own identity, and none is perfect.  Still, each has its function, and all are a delight to behold.