Artist’s heapin’ helpin’ of spoons
New exhibition pays tribute to the utensils
AFeilding art exhibition is stirring interest by bringing to life an everyday kitchen utensil — the humble spoon.
Palmerston North artist Robyn Parkinson has created new pieces from branches and twigs — with no two spoons the same — thus enhancing the life force of something that might otherwise rot or burn.
Parkinson’s love of wood was instilled at a young age. One of her childhood chores was to chop wood and kindling, with an axe, from giant rings, and she has collected her own firewood for winter ever since.
She would often marvel at the various shapes and patterns within every piece of wood, but it wasn’t until the spare time provided by the initial Covid-19 lockdown that she started making spoons.
Not afraid of sharp tools and working in the shed, she began tinkering with the wood and before long a line of spoons was handcrafted — some long, some short — but all showcasing the unique natural characteristics of their timber.
The wall-to-wall spoon exhibition now showing at Feilding and Districts Art Gallery is the artist’s first solo exhibition, having previously been involved in quilting collectives and costume entries for the World of WearableArt (WOW) awards.
Parkinson said she didn’t mind people touching the organic spoons.
“You are supposed to pick them up.
“They are beautiful to handle and fit in your hand differently than a factory spoon,” she said.
Also on display with the physical spoons were Parkinson’s spoon paintings, which show that nothing catches light quite like the hollow of a spoon.
People would give her a piece of wood, and she was able to give them back a spoon. She used a smorgasbord of hand-held tools to whittle the wood before sanding it and rubbing it gently with a stone from the beach, then staining with walnut oil.
Parkinson and husband Murray love gardening, and the potential for spoons was everywhere.
“I can’t help but spot wood or a fallen branch wherever I go,” she said.
A special line of spoons came when a family of four sisters gave Parkinson wood cut from their late father’s favourite plum tree, after she had offered to make a special memento for them to remember him by.
She made four spoons, one for each of his daughters.
The Art of Spoon Carving exhibition runs until April 19.