Commissioned Spoon

Just finished this jam spoon for a commission. It was hand forged from sterling silver and is 5" long.

My own, private, Idaho.

*Pictured: the dozen (surviving) spoons I have made since 2004

In graduate school, my advisor once referred to the spoons I'd made as "my own private Idaho." I understood that to mean that I made them only for myself, although I recently learned that is also the name of a movie staring River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves.

Anyway, I couldn't argue with her because it's true that I can't submit the spoons I've made to exhibitions; they aren't special enough. And I can't sell them either, partly because I don't want to part with them, but mostly because they take too long to make and people won't pay what I would have to charge. I don't blame them--I couldn't spend $75 or $100 on a single teaspoon.

I nonetheless feel compelled to continue making spoons, despite the material costs and time involved. I have felt guilty about doing it at times because it seems like I should be spending whatever studio time I have on "serious," or at least money-making, work.
Then, a couple weeks ago I decided to work on some self-portrait sketches while I watched TV in the evenings. That made me think about artists who have done hundreds or thousands of self-portraits over their careers. I've started to think that since I'm not really a 2-D artist at all, spoons are sort of like self-portraits for me.
They represent a simple and relatively uniform subject that can be interpreted in thousands of different ways. Making spoons by forging is difficult and though I've made many more than the ones pictured (the bad ones get scrapped) I still don't feel like I'm very good at it.

I know painters can exhibit their self-portraits and I'll most likely never have an exhibition of my spoons, but there's still something I want to learn about making them. And I keep thinking that someday, maybe I'll be glad I spent my time this way.

Evolution

The starting piece was a little over 3" long, and about 5/16" thick. It took about 15 hours, spread over 4 days to finish.

'nother new spoon

A little head and a long handle.
Daily photo: 3/3/08

Some people draw,

I make spoons. I love spoons. I love to make spoons. I have struggled to make work about spoons, which has resulted in one successful piece, but I still don't feel done with spoons.

So, periodically I grab a chunk of silver and, much to N's dismay (who has to share a studio with my noise), I pound it into a spoon.
It occurred to me as I was making this most recent spoon that, for me, making a spoon is like drawing for other 3-D artists who draw to release artistic pressure and work through an idea.

I don't know what idea I'm trying to work through. I know I like to make them because they are the most "metal" thing I know how to do. I like working with the silver, which I rarely do in my other work and I like pushing the metal's malleability. It amazes me that a square piece of silver rod can be transformed into a predetermined shape based on the way I orient my hammer. It makes the metal seem fluid, or like clay, which it is, but I don't always think of it that way.

I am pleased with the gesture of this spoon, which is deliberately 'swooshy.' What I do know about why I make spoons is that I'm trying to find my own voice with them. Not necessarily something to say about them, but just my style or point of view on spoons and the gesture is one of the things I am most enjoy about the spoons I've made so far.

My favorite book of spoons is Herbei, herbei, was Löffel sei, a collection of spoons by Herman Junger. Good luck finding it. It was apparently only printed in Europe and very limitedly, at that.

Daily photo: 2/26/08

Souvenirs

While I'm on the subject of things that interest me, I'll take a moment to mention souvenirs. I am/have been very interested in souvenirs as a class of objects for a while now. I like them because they are objects of significance, and nothing else. They are not useful, nor were they ever intended to be. They are only meant to recall a past experience, a lost experience that cannot be repeated. Souvenirs are generally some of the least authentically made objects that are meant to authenticate life's experiences: they provide physical proof that something happened, or you did something, and amassing a collection of souvenirs means you've done a lot of things. I like the contradiction that something more or less materially worthless, like a cheap souvenir spoon, can be very emotionally valuable.

But I did not buy the spoons pictured here to mark an anniversary, or my trips to Texas. I bought these spoons as part of a collection of 28 other souvenir spoons on Ebay. I don't know if they were accumulated by one person, or thrown together by their seller, and other than for reference material (which is why I bought them), I can't think of why anyone would buy someone else's collection of crappy spoons. But presumably they do. And I have kept them long after I needed the reference.

Periodically I look at these spoons as they hang on a wall in my studio and wonder what, if anything, they mean now.