A Wonderful World

It continually amazes me when I think of this world that I have found.  I didn't create it, it has been here all the time.  I just found it though, a few months ago.  I needed something to occupy my time, something to keep my hands busy.  I remember that night, sitting down in front of my PC, browsing the internet and somehow I found a video from a guy named Carl in Minnesota.  In his video he showed how to carve a spoon.  How to cut the blank, how to carve the handle and the bowl.  As he talked over the screech of his bandsaw, I sat with my mouth hanging open in wonder.  I was hooked.  I mean right that second I went from not even knowing about spoon carving to being obsessed.  It was that night that I had my first glimpse into this wonderful world.  It wasn't too long before my first spoon was carved.

Days have changed to weeks and weeks to months since that night.  There are wood shavings in the garage, random spoons laying around the house.  I have a few nicks and cuts on my hands that are healing, and still, I am hooked.  There is something magical about taking a log from a tree and making a spoon.  It is a simple thing really, these spoons.  Just pieces of wood that have been shaped and carved and sanded.  The world needs more simple things I think.  More things made by the sweat of your brow and the strength of your hands.  I know that, for me at least, each time I sit and carve, I come away feeling like I have accomplished more by making that spoon then by working a full week at my "real" job.