About

So first off, maybe give us a sense of how you started carving spoons, where that practice has taken you and what role it plays in your life currently. What creative constraints has living in a city placed on you?

I have always been interested in crafts but moved away from it a bit when I studied design. In fact: before I started, I took an internship at a blacksmith for a couple of weeks as a kind of farewell to craft as a job. I still liked crafts over the years, always being a bit alone with it among the people I hung out with. Until Instagram had in fact a very big and sudden impact on getting me started with pottery and then spoon carving. Not only for inspiration and learnings, but even more for finding all these people being interested in same stuff as I was, finding the same joy in it, making all those amazing things.

I first saw a carved spoon in a potters post and started following some accounts, until I saw an offer of spoon blanks. I ordered them, as well as two cheap knives, and got started. Carving was a great craft for me as pottery was so annoying with the opening hours of the workshop I went to. Very hard to organize with kids, and pottery takes so many steps with a lot of waiting in between. Compared to that carving was quite impromtu, and I could do it at home! And all the time! When I was starting out you used to make a live story on Instagram almost every day, carving and explaining as you went. That helped me a lot and kept me going. 

The first year or more I only carved from band sawn blanks of rock hard wood, every spoon took really long to make. When I started with green wood, it was really confusing at first because it went so quick. I was used to having a long, long time for thinking about any detail and suddenly carving went almost too fast. 

Carving in a city appartment is of course possible, but a problem is axing. It’s noisy and messy. So last year I rented a spot in a shared atelier and go there – for axing and sharpening mostly, because I found that I can’t really carve there. Maybe it is because I am just used to it, or maybe I need the coziness of my home, but I can only carve at that one window of my living room we also were standing at when you visited. It is still the only space I like to create at.

Your work is playful, exploring forms and ways of deconstructing what a spoon is that I personally find quite inspiring. What informs your work in this regard? Where do you think it is going, and what have you learned so far?

I think, my work is greatly shaped by not being able to get a routine… because of work, family, not having wood, or the infamous putting off sharpening, I am regularely forced into longer breaks. It surely keeps me from getting better at axing for example, but it also makes me approach fresh every time. I somehow need this as part of my creative process, to float to and from the crafts I do. 

I feel greatly inspired by many japanese or korean carvers for their simple and perfectly balanced shapes and they sparked my love for small spoons – not for the uncomfortable carving process, but the potential space they offer. When working with cut offs or odd shaped pieces of wood, their limitations push me into shapes I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. Here I can revive that experience from being a beginner at carving, when I was surprised by any spoon, not knowing really what I would end up with when finished.

This year I started reviewing my work a bit, thinking about why I like some shapes I made more then others. Or how form is connected to size, how some shapes only work in one particular scale. Or how some forms only work with a certain type of wood and are less exciting or beautiful in a different type. Recentely I started using templates, so I can easily recreate some of my favorite spoons and then focus solely on the little details to bring out the shapes’ qualities even more. 

But mostly inspired I am from actually using the things I make, I really enjoy setting the table with many dishes, with many bowls and spoons. Sometimes I make a spoon and dont’t really know what to use it for, because it has an odd shape or size. Finding it’s own purpose then is something I just love. I wouldn’t have thought some years ago I would be in need of so many spoons for different occasions! I have a whipped cream spoon!

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You also make temari balls, which despite being so different from woodens spoons also feel like they share a similar ethos. Can you explain what they are, how you got into making them and how this practice shapes your spoon carving? You gave me some when I was visiting, and we love having them in our home.

It makes me so happy that you can feel that same spark in both things. To me, any hand made object is a bit of a magical thing. It carries the touch of the maker and his understanding of aesthetics, and therefore always turns out recognizable, like handwriting or your personal style in drawing. 

Temari are a japanese traditional gift. I’ve read different things, like that mothers made it from rice and old kimonos for their children, working in a piece of paper with a magic spell. Or that it is made as a new years gift for friends, the bright colors symbolizing good wishes and fulness of life. First I saw some in a japanese shop that was in our building for several years, and tried to make some myself. It was frustrating at first, the traditional temari patterns are crazy complicated. Google it a bit and you’ll see what I mean. I am preschool level compared to that.

But over time it became a craft very close to me, very personal. I found my own way of making simple patterns that are fixed and can be touched without screwing up a delicate design, making the ball a toy again and not just an object for awe. Because there is not much online in tutorials I figured out a lot of the routines and processes myself. I organize the materials I use in my own logic. And am constantly refining the details of my process. 

To me temari are perfect for little kids, approaching so many senses, having a tactile quality of lines and crossings and knots, a visual one of geometry and decoration, and I never make one without a rattle of little stones, so when you pick it up it also surprises you with a sound – even with another tactile sensation, too, feeling the rolling of the stones in your finger tips. The stones I mostly collect by the river running through Munich, it’s just a five minute walk from my home.

I gifted a few to friends when they had a baby. On one occasion I was given some small objects picked by the parents and the three brothers of a baby girl, to put it inside as a rattle, together with a tiny letter. It was so much joy to make. I’d be happy to do that more often, making personal rattles, with stones maybe from a spot dear to you, the backyard of your childhood, a mountain you climbed, a lake you swam… and make that into a soft to the touch and brightly colored vessel to keep them in. Temari are just nice to have laying around. Also look good on a christmas tree!

In my atelier there’s also a kiln and a pottery wheel, so I am slowly picking up that craft again, too, trying some new things – with some carving influence… I am very much into carving facets and textures now, and have an urge to burnish the pieces :). 

Wood, clay and thread are the materials I can’t let go off. Each one has it’s own qualities – wood demands strength and technique, but gives you right away an object or tool to use, which is so very satisfying. Clay is more delicate, but needs patience because it takes forever and several work circles until it’s finally finished. And working with thread is just super cozy, and very joyful with all the bright colors and their combinations to choose, and very calming with the almost puzzle like patterns. Here I can live out my desire to decorate, while with wood and clay I am more interested in shape than decoration.

I‘m not sure if it‘s still current, but you used to work in the magazine trade, and so when I was visiting you were very generous with ideas for making this magazine better. One in particular, the spoon portrait, is something we just started doing with the last two issues on the back cover, and is entirely because you suggested it to me years ago. Does this professional experience inform your spoon carving practice, either the carving itself or how you put yourself out there?

Hm, I don’t know. I know how to edit pictures, which comes in handy because I hate the technical side of photography and am only comfortable taking pictures with my phone.  

My profession helps me though with shapes and curves: Part of studiying design was learning how to design and draw typefaces, as well as doing some calligraphy. That is basically a lot about finding harmony in a curved shape, the exact right spot when to change direction, when to flatten a curve or when to make it more dynamic. A lot of that is in spoon carving, too, in the side profile for example. Years ago I also made vector based illustrations from time to time, also all about handling curves… I think that routine helps me in carving when defining a form.