The 50 year old handmade spatula

The first large project for Miranda’s Hearth is the completion of the Tiny Hearth, a 120 square foot prototype for the rooms in the community art hotel.  Right now, I’m in the process of researching, saving money, raising funds, and finding fabulous handcrafted objects that will be part of my future home.  The goal is to have as many things as possible in the Tiny Hearth made by local residents from the dishes to the pillows to the quits to the utensils.

On April 26th, I bought the first intentional piece for the Tiny Hearth: a 50 year old handmade spatula.

The purchase was completely accidental, I was at the New England Folk Festival Association’s annual weekend-long dance down in Mansfield and while taking a break from the hours upon hours of dancing, I wandered into the vendor hall.  At this point, I’m used to being one of the vendors at craft-fairs where I sell copies of Don’t Make Art, Just Make Something, so I always relish the chance to walk around for myself.

The table I kept coming back to was a lovely display of carved and turned-wood pieces made by Jonathon Morel.  He had just about every utensil you could think of, from four different kinds of spoons to spreading knives to spatulas to specially carved maple leaf dishes.  My eye was caught by a handsome dark wood spatula that made my empty stomach think of stirfrys, scrambled eggs, and sauteed chicken.  Jonathon saw me looking at the spatulas and immediately pointed to one next to the one that had caught my eye.

“This one has a fun story,” he said. “The piece of wood was actually 50 years old by the time I got it.  It was in one workshop for thirty years and then another one for twenty years.  But I don’t have enough room in my workshop to walk across, let alone keep an extra piece of wood, so I made it into a spatula.”

I handled it with reference, thinking of the all the things this piece of wood (which was over twice my age even without considering how old the original tree was) had seen.  It’s hard maple, a light wood that I usually pass by in favor of the deeper stains, but the story had caught me.  I wanted it to be part of my story, to be able to think of it while I was making eggs for breakfast or stirfry for dinner.

As I was paying Jonathon, he told me that he made his first wooden spatula after a conversation with a woman.  She had an iron wood spatula that wore out after 30 years so she asked Jonathon to make one and he’s been making them ever since.

See more of Jonathon’s beautiful work at morelwoodcarving.com