My friend Ian recently came through LA on tour playing, among other instruments, the saw. I hadn’t seen him in many years and we discovered a mutual newfound love of carving. So, for an upcoming wedding of our old friends Keri and Joe, Ian and I decided to embark on a cross country carving collaboration. Ian mostly carves green wood which he finds around his homeland in rural New England. Since there’s a shortage of woodlands in Los Angeles, I tend to carve out of left over scraps of dried lumber kicking around Nick’s shop.
With only some rough sketches and dimensions exchanged, our finish products ended up more or less matching in size and aura, but varied significantly in style. Ian chopped down a sugar maple tree, carved it green, and sanded his fork to a smooth ivory sheen which he then soaked in olive oil. My spoon, carved from a cut-off of aromatic bay laurel, has a less refined (more ‘rabid animal’) texture to it. I left the marks of my tools only lightly sanded and finished it with walnut oil. Our two finished salad tools were united in Brooklyn, NY on February 27th, 2011 and have been happily married ever since.