Today I'm going to interview a talented wood craft designer and photographer. I found him through his wordpress blog and discovered his beautiful work, so I just want share it with you all today.

Q:  Would you share with us how you started to create your art work?

A: I always loved wood and playing with a knife but never really wanted to do any type of sculpture, then one day I decided to give a try in carving a useful piece, a spoon. That's how the story began…

Q:  What's story behind your brand?

A: The name came very easily as my spoons are all made following the curve and movement of the grain, as I love letting the cut goes freely to create a Natural Spoon.

Q: Do you want to share your work place , and what tools do you use?

A: This is where I carve, surrounded with smells and sounds from the nature, perfect!

I only use hand tools: straight knifes, crooked knifes, axe, saw…

It makes the work more connected to what you're doing, you're aware of every stroke you make and directly touching the wood.

Q: What is your working schedule like?  

A: I do spoons whenever I have a moment during day time, dark is not good time to play with cutting tools!

Q: Which type of material do you like to use the most and why?

A: Wood! From fallen trees that I gather while hiking the BC west coast forests, mainly Arbutus wood, it has a beautiful smooth grain once finished, keep its finish after many meals in the kitchen and it has an amazing twisted look with its red bark!

Juniper is another wood  I love for its color and strong smell.

And any type of driftwood, always a surprise, after spending so much time is the ocean, the wood has a beautiful dense structure.

Q: Where does your inspiration come from?

A: My inspiration comes from the place I live, beautiful British Columbia!

(use image: naturalspoon_BC01.jpg, naturalspoon_BC04.jpg, naturalspoon_BC02.jpg)

Q: What's the hardest part of your design career?

A: Working with a living material from time to time brings some challenges.

Arbutus tree is so twisted that very often it gives surprises and doesn't react the way you would expect…but it's the beauty of wood, always having to be creative and using mistakes as a support for new directions.

Q: Which part of working do you enjoy the most?

A: I enjoy when I chose a nice piece of wood, start cutting it, smelling its flavor and then it flows naturally until a finished spoon appears, always pretty cool!

Q: What it your next project?

A: Making more spoons, I would like to have a lot for a coming local market.

I also want to try bigger pieces likes bowls.

Q: What kind of books do you like to read, and what kind of music do you like? (or some other hobby you like)

A: A Book with a good story and I'm happy. Lots of music, any beat depending of the feeling of the moment, right now I'm listening to some cool dub music!

Q: If you were not a designer, what do you think you would be?

A: Knife maker is  something I still would like to do.

Q:.If young people want to follow the same path as you, what would you suggest?

A: Take the time the learn the basics, cutting tools are dangerous!

Carve small pieces to get a workflow that fits you and don't be afraid of making mistakes, very often following a different direction ends up with good surprises.

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Check his more work here – Natural Spoon

Picturea from – Photograhy

Thanks Romain for sharing with us today, I hope you enjoy!