JoJo

There are two older men who have been carving spoons a long time, and also two younger men, close to my age at the time, in their late teens, who have only been doing this for a few years. One of the carvers showed us how they did the rough work, sawing the piece of citrus wood in two to get two spoons out of it, and using a large adze to carve it down to shape. One of the team uses a tiny adze with a pushing action along the handle of the spoon to smooth all the surfaces out, while the other uses a double-edged spoon knife to skillfully hollow the bowl out, clamping the spoon using the feet. The spoons are then usually transported into the city where they are rasped and sanded to the finished spoons that can be bought across Marrakech, but we just LOVE the beautifully smooth tooled surface that the carvers leave, so we bought 50 of them straight from the pile to bring home with us.

As those of you who follow me on Facebook and Instagram know, lately I have been doing a lot of work with my social enterprise, Pathcarvers. We run craft courses which funds work with people who wouldn’t usually get to experience craft, helping them gain access to the fantastic benefits to help with mental, social and physical difficulties. The space is my workshop where I make and teach, and also a creative space for Pathcarvers. We have a weekly carving club, where we open our doors for likeminded people to come and carve together, we run courses in a range of crafts, and we have a growing shop with a range of wonderful hand-made goods, which helps us support both the project and also other artisans.

After the latest spoon carving course I am just catching up with my pictures and finding time to reflect.. We started a couple of weeks ago with a beginners spoon carving course in Edale. I spend my evenings making a big pot of soup to eat, so everyone gets to experience eating with a wooden spoon. We were a smaller group & spent two days getting down into the nitty gritty of spoon details.

I will be talking about my life and my work at the 2018 Heritage Crafts Association conference “Crafts for the Future” in London on Saturday 24th March. I will be talking about how I became the craftsperson I am today, the difficulties I have overcome, and where things will be going in the future. Also speaking will be a fantastic selection of other inspirational people. Book your tickets for the HCA conference here.