Woodworker Mark Reddy is represented by Gallery 57 in West Sussex, England. They say:
Mark Reddy takes the modest, humble form of the spoon and imbues it with symbolic expression.
Skillfully working with wood cut and foraged locally, he utilises the innate character inherent in this material. His extraordinary spoons and vessels are carved in the green with simple traditional tools: the hand axe, the maul, the froe, and the crook knife, from native Somerset trees.
Spalted beech, oak, maple, apple, cherry and walnut; a pale hazel spoon - the handle with live bark still intact; others embellished and burnished with gold; a loop of hand woven reed or grass cordage or adorned with a Roman coin, a stone bead, with carved and found objects.
Each piece, with its tokens and amulets embody a strange and intriguing narrative.
There are vessels, pod like or structural, the wood raw, gilded, painted, faceted, or carbonised, still with all the evidence of the maker's hand.
The spoon is arguably man's first vessel, a giver of life, a utensil providing comfort and nourishment: universal and timeless, domestic and intimate. Spoons are the earliest eating tools, dating back as far as the Paleolithic era. Sea shells were connected to small wooden sticks and chips of wood were slowly carved into spoon-like shapes.
With its lip, bowl, shoulders, neck and stem the spoon has all the attributes of a sculptural object.... but it is still just a spoon and for Mark, the repetition in making such a humble and yet essential vessel is infinitely fulfilling and endlessly demanding.
I am having a visceral response to these objects of great beauty.
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| Walnut, cherry, beech, and maple spoons, scoops, and bowls embellished with small tokens. |
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First two spoons carved in green wood from beech with woven grass cordage, found objects including beech husks, Neolithic beads,
sea-worn stones, and beaten silver. The third spoon is Blackthorn with a live bark handle. |
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| Carved green wood spoon and vessel and metal spoon. |
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| Five live bark-handled spoons carved from various green woods. |
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Spoon of blackened wild cherry wood with Roman bead, stone bead, unnamed found coin,
sea-worn metal token, wood and metal armature. |
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Pale plum wood with Roman bead, two found metal tokens, sea-worn stone token,
wood and metal armature. |
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