Folk Art

In dear old Twinkleberry where I live there is an abundance of charity shops. Its the sort of place you could easily spend a morning wandering them with a stop for a spot of cake. They are not the swish shops, you are unlikely to find any major Finds but you will find enough to have made the trip worthwhile. I try to make it round all of them once a week. I enjoy browsing the clothes but mostly I head for the bric a brac shelves. I am not looking for anything in particular but just casting an eye over. My parents have always collected things, in particular glass, so I enjoy browsing. One of the things I always look at are holiday nic nacs/souvenirs. I love travel and always have to pick up a souvenir and I enjoy seeing other peoples. People seem to bring back the local handmade item. I think of these as modern day folk art. I am always a sucker for anything handmade. Sometimes they are utter tat and sometimes they are not. I was drawn to this spoon stand straight away but wasn't sure about it. I dithered and decided to buy it as it might make a toothbrush holder. I have 3 kids who have a remarkable ability to miss the tooth mug and their toothbrushes end up in the wash basket!
Anyway by the time I got it home I had decided I loved it. I love hand carved wooden spoons and I put it on the counter and looked at it. The children and j came in each picked it up and turned it over. The holes are too big for toothbrushes but I am secretly pleased about that. As you can see it has 3 spoons hanging down, each has a simple leaf pattern. The stand has some simple geometric circle design.
I decided to look it up in my big girls book of folk art. I bought this at Christmas and it hasn't yet made it onto a bookshelf. it sits beside the sofa and is often pulled out to wander through. I got that little whoop inside when I opened it up and saw the page entitled Chip carved wooden spoons. It turns out that my spoons are likely to be from Transylvania/Romania. That's quite a way to Twinkleberry!
My collection of folk art grows and although I would never even consider it to be worth more than the £2:49 I paid for it, I love it, the materials, the design,the distance its travelled. Someone made this, they sat down with the materials and thought about the shape and the design. Now I know its been made for the tourist market I don't hae a romantic view that a little old man has sat and carved it in the woods and sold it to the passing peddler but someone made it. Skilled in their craft. They live on in the things that they have made. I found a video of a spoon carver here.Now all I need is a handmade kitchen to put it in. full of natural materials with hints of colour from wonderful ceramics and tiles. In the meanwhile I have taken a photo on the fence!

On a note of "Live what you love" go and have a look at what Amanda did to her car. Live what you love to perfection.