I carved my first spoon for my then girlfriend when I was working away from home in my early twenties using a large Norwegian hunting knife that I had been given by my girlfriend's parents. A totally inappropriate tool for the task, but I still have the knife, she still has the spoon and we have been married for the past forty odd years!
I came back to spoon carving a few decades later as a way of relieving stress. I've always loved making things from wood and when you only have a few hours at a weekend, spoons are an ideal choice as they can be carved from start to finish in an hour or two. I love seeing how wood splits and then turning it into something useful rather than trying to squeeze a pre-determined shape from a piece of straight-grained wood.
Being given larger pieces of wood tempted me to add furniture into my repertoire and I so started making stools, benches and tables too -- all slightly wild with very few straight lines.
Recently, I have teamed up with my wife, Amanda Clayton, a printmaker, and we have exhibited together in the Craft House, Woodbridge and the George Farnham gallery in Saxmundham under the umbrella of Clayton Creatives.
We're both delighted to be able to create a hub with Amanda's sister, Camilla Nicholls, who's a potter, for this year's SOS.
