Spoon Carver's Gathering - Milan, MN

Three weeks ago my husband, David, and I packed up the car and took a road trip to Minnesota to attend the Spoon Carver’s Gathering. It isn’t quite as crazy as it sounds, even though we are coming from Upstate New York, David grew up in Minnesota and we were able to visit his parents.

I heard about the Gathering last year from Norman Stevens, a collector of hand carved wood spoons. He was asking if I would like to be a part of his collection, and then mentioned that he would be displaying them at the Spoon Carver’s Gathering, and proceeded to tell me about it. I tried to figure out a way to attend myself, but since it didn’t work, David’s parents went for me.

This year, I started talking about it early, to give David a lot of warning, and things worked out really well that we could take the time for the trip.

What a great trip it was!

Spoon carving is something I have been doing on my own for the past two years. I’ve never taken a class and I have only talked to one other person who carves spoons. To be at a Gathering, where just about everyone is interested in carving spoons, both for business or pleasure, was just a delight!

The schedule was loose, to give people time to sit and carve and chat. I met so many great people and saw so many different spoons that these people made.

It is really hard for me to verbalize just how much I enjoyed the weekend. I think, that unless you have been to something similar, it would also be hard to understand. It is also hard for me to share how much my carving has been used in my life to mature me. I give thanks every day for my work that I am able to do. To then be surrounded by so many other people who also enjoy the same thing, is filling.

So, instead of trying to tell you how well I enjoyed it, I’ll add a few photos so you can see what the day was like.

Fred Levesay giving a spoon carving demo. Here he is showing how to rough out the spoon first with an ax.

Tom Denglar showing how to make Shrink boxes.

Tom and some of his work.

Del Stubbs giving a knife sharpening demo.

Del touching up my hook knife.

Chit chat with other carvers.

My new friend, Dawna, working on a spoon.

Work done by two of the demonstrators, April does the woven baskets and Jarrod the bowls and spoons.

April and Jarrod

David and his parents.

I hope to make a separate page of the Spoon Gathering photos under “Photo Galleries” on the side menu. There will be a few more not pictured here.