I've been giving a lot of thought lately to bowls. There are a lot of ways to approach them. They can be shallow or deep, thin or thick. They can have a curved lip or a flat lip. The bowl may be in line with the handle, or at a different angle from it. It can be oval, heart-shaped, egg-shaped, round, triangular, pear-shaped, tear-drop-shaped, marquis-shaped, or any number of other shapes, I suppose.... There are a lot of ways to approach a bowl.
So... here are bowls from some of my very first few spoons... As you see, it took me a while to tear myself away from making a heart-shaped bowl.
To some not quite as early bowls...
And then a few that were deeper....
And then, you'll remember those workshop spoons....
And then a few more varieties for good measure...
I have always kept my bowls somewhat in line with the handle of my spoons, probably more out of convenience than anything, because I generally begin with finished boards. However, more and more, I've been taking advantage the thickness of my blanks to change that angle of the handle in relation to the bowl, having the handles bend back and away a bit from a level-topped bowl. I do think I like the idea of keeping the top of my bowls level, since the point of a spoon, after all, is to hold liquid, and any part of the lip that isn't level would just be extra, and probably in the way. So I could see having a little extra over level near the attachment to the handle, but otherwise, I see little reason to do it.
But then... I have seen some really lovely spoons with a rather pretty "swoop" to the shape of that top lip of the bowl... instead of a flat plane. When you blend that with the handle, I can see that making for some very pretty shaping. And, after all, lovespoons are decorative, not utilitarian. But I haven't really explored it yet. I have, however, been thinking more and more about it. Of course, that also means I should get my band saw set up..... hmmm...
Also, I've been looking at some spoons lately - more the ladle type, and I think the old Welsh cawl spoon (from which the lovespoon has been said to have evolved) may have been more of a ladle type, with the bowl tilted forward a bit. For real, utility spoons, the grain would be really important with a feature like this, and cutting the blank might be quite a challenge - I suspect using limbs with a certain bend in them is probably a good solution in many cases. I'll have to give more thought to whether I want to venture into that sort of profile for my spoons, though.
In any case, I suppose the point I intended to make when I sat down today was this: I think it's good to think about bowls... experiment with them, explore them.... the bowl is the core of a spoon, and should be given due attention. I'm sure the style of my bowls will continue to evolve, and I hope anyone else out there making spoons will give bowls a little extra thought, as well.
I've been thinking about bowls a lot lately myself. And not just on lovespoons. Most of my bowls have level rims, though I have experimented with the swoop. And when I screw up the rim the swoop is a nice recovery! ;-) Though I have discovered that, while it looks good, on a using spoon it's not particularly practical. Leakage down the chin occurs if you're not really careful. And if you have a beard . . . well, enough said about THAT!
ReplyDeleteI've considered the bowl of the spoon to be of primary importance ever since I began taking the art of lovespoons seriously, after I came across David Western's book. However I've never really thought about the topology of the bowl, as it relates to a 'practical spoon bowl' but I can see some sense in that. In particular I have never thought about whether the rim is level or not. When I look back at my finished spoons I see that the bowls are mostly quite deep and often include a pronounced 'swoop' in the rim.
ReplyDeleteSo I too have been thinking about the spoon bowl since this post and have come to the conclusion that I like just about all the shapes and depths that are available plus the many possible shapes. I am keen to try a full variety of bowl styles in time. I then wonder why I have so often carved deepish bowls when I like the look of the shallow ones as well. As is often the case, a simple fact can be behind a result and I think some of my design decisions are influenced by wanting to lose as little of the timber's length breadth and depth as possible. So thank you for featuring spoon bowls in this blog post.