Generación / generation

By: Chris Connolly

“A work is never truly completed . . . only abandoned” is a quote often misattributed to Leonardo DaVinci, but it was actually penned by the French poet Paul Valéry. Whoever said it, it perfectly captures the tension present in craft between pursuing perfection and deeming something “good enough.” As artists and craftsmen, we would like to believe the agency to craft the perfect object lies entirely within ourselves, that with sufficient planning and ability we can execute on a vision and resolve any and all issues that arise throughout the process. In our era of digital drafting and editing tools this is often true, and we are free to endlessly tweak, edit, and iterate upon digital creations. 

However, when working with physical mediums — wood, clay, paint, etc. — we are forcibly reminded that our substrate of choice contains its own will, and that the act of creation is a process of compromise and collaboration with the object itself. We cannot solely dictate when an object is finished — the physical limitations of the medium play a factor as well. This is especially true of subtractive mediums, where every mark made diminishes potential, every cut constrains, every incision severs twigs and limbs from the fig tree of possibilities. Please pardon the trite Sylvia Plath reference, but the fig tree analogy segues too well into the topic of this essay: whittling wood.

I began whittling spoons two years ago after a thunderstorm downed a large branch from a cherry tree in the park opposite my apartment. I dragged it home and used a kitchen cleaver and Exact-O knife to chop out an ugly, impractical spoon, and since then I’ve been hooked. I’ve whittled dozens of spoons with wood from trees all over Brooklyn. I love the process of scavenging detritus wood from the city (I have a private Google Map marked with downed branches I’ve spotted and always get excited for a good windstorm) and determining the best use for each of the branches I’ve found — a branch from a pagoda tree in Ridgewood turned into a tea spoon, a peach branch from Bedstuy turned into an eating spoon, or even the cherry branch I found in Greenpoint turned into a soup ladle. As an aside, if you haven’t seen the NYC Tree Map before I highly recommend checking it out.

Wood is an interesting material to work with since, at one point it literally had a life of its own, and that story is written in the wood’s grain. Wide rings in a tree’s growth pattern indicate warm, wet years with good growing conditions, while narrow rings indicate harsh years or stress from pests and fire. Knots in a tree indicate where new branches stemmed off from the main growth. Swirling grain, known as burlwood and highly prized by furniture makers, forms as a defensive barrier around fungal or insect infestations. The pattern of the grain constrains the variety of objects a branch can become. A branch with too tight a grain cannot be made into a large serving spoon as it will be highly prone to cracking; to make a proper soup ladle you need to find a “crotch” piece, where another branch has grown off the main one to naturally create the curve of the ladle’s bowl. 

A seasoned whittler can go from a raw branch to a finished spoon in under an hour. Mine typically take three to four. Time is of the essence, as spoon carving falls under the category of what is called “green” woodworking — where the wood is worked while it is still full of moisture. This is as opposed to “seasoned” wood, which has been left out to dry completely and is used for home construction and furniture making, since the wood does not change shape as it dries. Every minute green wood is exposed to air it becomes more and more difficult to work by hand; much to my roommate’s chagrin I store some of my scavenged branches in our freezer. In between frostbitten chicken thighs and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Cookie Dough, my wood awaits. 

Indeed, whittling requires deep patience and foresight. We’re already on the second page and we haven’t even begun carving; but once you start, the process moves fast. First, grab an axe to remove the bark and carve out the rough shape of the spoon. You would be surprised at the level of detail you can achieve with a sufficiently sharp hatchet. After the shape is roughed out, the finesse work begins. The goal is to create a symmetrical object with elegant lines and a comfortable fit in the hand, but rarely does this go to plan. All too often, on one side of the spoon I’ll carve out the perfect resolution to the transition between the head and handle but when recreating this on the other side, I cut too deep and leave myself with a dilemma. Do I cut again into the first side, which I like so much and can’t bear to disfigure, to make it match its botched neighbor? Or do I abandon symmetry for the sake of a beautiful line? Or another classic whittling headache: I have achieved the shape I aspired to, but poorly handled my knife in the process, tearing out some of the wood grain and leaving the texture rough and unfinished. I could carve down through the tearout following the direction of the grain and smooth it out, but in doing so could lose that delightful heft the spoon currently contains. Oh, and think fast, because the wood is drying out. These decisions are final and there is no command Z coming to save you. 

I have made many spoons where I did not resolve all the issues I wanted to, but the loss and lack of physical material made it impossible to continue. The spoon has dictated when the work is done and forced me to surrender control. In a way it is unfinished, as I did not finish what I set out to do. But the spoon functions as a spoon and the imbalances I wanted to fix distinguish it from all the other spoons I have made. The rough spots indicate the handcraft involved in making the spoon and serve as a reminder of the care and attention paid to it. Funnily enough, the proper way to “finish” a spoon (the technical term for the surface treatment of the wood) is subject itself to much debate. Casual spoon enjoyers might opt for a sanded finish to correct textural blemishes and stray marks, but purists argue a knife finish, even imperfect, is more aesthetically pleasing and indicative of carving skill. 

If the medium is the message, then the process is the object. And that process is forever ongoing, even after the tools are laid down. Any work of art, image, or idea continues to transform as it is passed through different hands, perceived through distinct lenses, and recalled from more and more distant eras. A utensil carved by a prehistoric human carries an academic significance today far deeper than the practical role it served to its creator. In this way all objects are unfinished, ephemeral, in transition; some are just more candid about it.