For anyone new to this, lovespoons are a traditional Welsh folk art. David Western and Laura Gorun are lovespoon carvers who have very generously donated their time to create a one-of-a-kind masterpiece in support of the Left Coast Eisteddfod, a Welsh performing arts festival for the west coast of North America. Every dollar you donate through the blog buys you a ticket and a chance to win the spoon. Five dollars, equals five tickets, fifty dollars equals fifty tickets and fifty chances to win. This is David's second year of creation in support of this event and we are very grateful for his and Laura's generosity in sharing their work with us all. For a chance to win their spoon this year, click on the donate button on the blog or in the right-hand column on this page under the Left Coast Eisteddfod Competitions button and be sure to note that your donation is for the lovespoon. Reprinted with permission from David Western's blog , all material 2010, David Western --

Well, after having a really good, hard look at the new knotwork, I am in agreement with Laura that it needs to come down a bit, so I am going to have a bash at putting it just above the dragon and getting rid of the circle idea. I think if I can fatten up some of the knotwork just above the dragon's head, it will give some visual weight to the area and will let me tie the knot in a bit more smoothly.

With the knotwork moved, there seems to be a 'tapering' feeling to the flow of the overall design, so I have widened the top area with the eagle a bit more and am tying the knotwork through. My hope is that we can surround the frame with the eagle and the knotwork and give things more of a three dimensional feel. It will make for some nasty carving problems, but should look pretty smart if we can pull it off!

















After looking at this newest outline for a while, I am feeling that it is a bit stubby and too short at the top.
























I have opted to paste a couple of photocopies together to see if lengthening the top section helps things at all. Although it feels a bit empty and airy through the top section now, I think that the overall form of the design is very close to right now and that Laura will be able to fill in this area with some of her lovely vine or floral ideas.
In the meantime, a quick reminder that you can win the finished spoon simply by donating to the Left Coast Eisteddfod. Every dollar you donate equals a chance at winning, so more dollars equals more chances!! Please consider supporting this worthwhile event and helping to further Welsh cultural events in North America!
Dave

For anyone new to this, lovespoons are a traditional Welsh folk art. David Western and Laura Gorun are lovespoon carvers who have very generously donated their time to create a one-of-a-kind masterpiece in support of the Left Coast Eisteddfod, a Welsh performing arts festival for the west coast of North America. Every dollar you donate through the blog buys you a ticket and a chance to win the spoon. Five dollars, equals five tickets, fifty dollars equals fifty tickets and fifty chances to win. This is David's second year of creation in support of this event and we are very grateful for his and Laura's generosity in sharing their work with us all. For a chance to win their spoon this year, click on the donate button on the blog or in the right-hand column on this page under the Left Coast Eisteddfod Competitions button and be sure to note that your donation is for the lovespoon. Reprinted with permission from David Western's blog , all material 2010, David Western --

My immediate thought when I saw Dave's drawing with the knotwork tied in with the eagle's tail was that the knotwork would make a lovely central part of the spoon. I share Dave's appreciation for the message that Celtic knotwork conveys - forever and Celtic heritage, among other things. Cymru am byth! (Wales forever!) Seems like a good central message for this spoon! I made several different drawings, arranging, re-arranging, changing sizes.... all sorts of things.

Here is where I arrived:; I am still unsure about the top half- I like the idea of vinework wrapping around the flat frame-like part. I still was unsure of how I wanted to do flowers, or if we should even try a couple daffodils instead, but moving the knotwork into the middle would leave room at the top for Dave and I to do something together. Also, above the knotwork, I added a little twist that I seem to do in a lot of my designs. I thought it might be a good transition from Dave's style to mine. I also drew a couple simple vines, still tying the knot into the eagle's tail, and behind the frame, also into the wing. Before I went too far working on ideas for the top, though, I wanted Dave's thoughts about moving the knotwork into the middle. If he likes this, and doesn't miss the cirle in the middle too much, then we can work on the top part next. We'll see what Dave thinks...

- Laura

For anyone new to this, lovespoons are a traditional Welsh folk art. David Western and Laura Gorun are lovespoon carvers who have very generously donated their time to create a one-of-a-kind masterpiece in support of the Left Coast Eisteddfod, a Welsh performing arts festival for the west coast of North America. Every dollar you donate through the blog buys you a ticket and a chance to win the spoon. Five dollars, equals five tickets, fifty dollars equals fifty tickets and fifty chances to win. This is David's second year of creation in support of this event and we are very grateful for his and Laura's generosity in sharing their work with us all. For a chance to win their spoon this year, click on the donate button on the blog or in the right-hand column on this page under the Left Coast Eisteddfod Competitions button and be sure to note that your donation is for the lovespoon. Reprinted with permission from David Western's blog , all material 2010, David Western --

Wow!! After going through Laura's flurry of excellent ideas, it looks like we will be spoiled for choices idea-wise!

Any one of the drawings she has come up with could form the basis for a marvelous lovespoon design so I've photocopied them all and am looking to see which design elements jump out at me and which don't.

I am very drawn to the eagle Laura has drawn with its wing wrapped dramatically around the top section of the spoon. I love the idea of the eagle appearing in our design as it is the symbol of America and it will go nicely with the Welsh dragon. Since the spoon symbolizes the merging of cultures, the dragon and eagle are very logical symbols, but I'd like to figure out a way to merge Laura's more realistic looking eagle into some Celtic knotwork as I have done with the dragon.

I also feel there is a section above the central circle which feels a bit too 'light'. To give this section a bit more weight without having it become overwhelmingly heavy, I want to utilize a nice pattern of Celtic knotwork.

While Celtic knotwork is almost unheard of on historical lovespoon examples, it has been embraced by modern lovespoon carvers to represent the notion of eternity or eternal love. This is especially so when the knot is circular or is 'enclosed' with no beginning or ending to the knot. For our spoon, the notion of eternity as it relates to the emigration of the Welsh to North America is an apt one. the Welsh have been here since the earliest European arrivals and hopefully will remain here as long as there is a North America! I don't know if Laura feels as strongly about it as I do, but for me, things like this lovespoon and the Left Coast Eisteddfod it is being made in support of, vividly illustrate that despite being the 'forgotten Celts', the Welsh have made and continue to make vibrant contributions to North American culture. I should mention that this spoon is being designed and crafted to help raise funds for the Left Coast Eisteddfod which will be held in Portland, Oregon on October 03-10, 2010. This will be the second year for this annual event and an exciting combination of online cultural competitions and live events in Portland. Please visit: http://americymru.ning.com/page/the-left-coast-eisteddfod-2010 to learn more. Your donation to the Left Coast Eisteddfod will earn you a chance to win this spoon, so even if you don't want to enter the competitions, you could still win a very lovely prize!!

So, with a nice Celtic knot in mind, I selected Laura's eagle crowned spoon with its little cascade of flowers. The lower body of the eagle merges into the knotwork, but its upper body remains pretty realistic. I changed some of the framework around and utilized some of the bottom section of the frame to create the origin of the knot. The knotwork has nicely filled in some of the 'empty' spaces, but I now am not so happy about the central circle. Originally, I had hoped that it would become the focal area of the spoon, but I'm not so sure about it now. It will be interesting to hear Laura's views on whether or not she likes the knotwork and where she thinks we should go with it next!
-Dave

The winners of our trivia competition for two, autographed copies of Peter Griffiths' 'Tongue Tied,' are Katy Pent and Meg Smith, who will receive a confirming email and their prizes shortly!

Congratulations and enjoy the books!

For anyone new to this, lovespoons are a traditional Welsh folk art. David Western and Laura Gorun are lovespoon carvers who have very generously donated their time to create a one-of-a-kind masterpiece in support of the Left Coast Eisteddfod, a Welsh performing arts festival for the west coast of North America. This is David's second year of creation in support of this event and we are very grateful for his and Laura's generosity in sharing their work with us all. For a chance to win their spoon this year, click on the donate button on the blog or in the right-hand column on this page under the Left Coast Eisteddfod Competitions button and be sure to note that your donation is for the lovespoon. Reprinted with permission from David Western's blog , all material 2010, David Western --

I was very happy to see Dave's Dragon, with its knotwork tongue, because I have always felt that dragons and knotwork were two things very distinct within his style. They were fantastic. I would never have seen that lurking in that first sketch, but I was very happy that he did! I had a lot to live up to with the next part. We'd talked about having elements distinct to each of our styles, so I tried to think about what is distinct in my style. We had talked about having an eagle, so I wanted to give that a try, but I never drew an eagle before, so I wasn't sure how much it would look like my style. One thing I know I do a lot is to make small flowers. So, I started there. I'd need a vine structure underneath small flowers, too. Almost immediately, I abandoned the bridge idea, and drew in some vines that would fit around the flat, frame-like component from the initial sketch. I also wanted to keep the central part, for Dave and I to try to do something together. So - I was focusing on the top half of the frame.

I started with a vine structure, and sketched in an eagle. I had made a few side-sketches of an eagle, after looking at a few photographic references. I was trying to decide on a position, and some generalities that make an eagle an eagle. There's something about the shape and strength of the wings and tail, along with the hooked beak and stern-looking eye, that I felt made an eagle look like an eagle. I knew one position I liked was what I saw at Eagle's Point at the Grand Canyon... if rocks could look so distinctly like an eagle, then I could certainly find a simple way to draw an eagle. After sketching a few positions, the position you see in this first drawing is where I landed.

I liked the movement, and I liked having lots of wing showing. Also, with this position, he could wrap around the frame, and enough of him would still show from the front of the spoon. The only hesitation I had was, it looked very literal. I didn't have a solution, though, so I moved on, for the moment. One thing I learned in school (where I was mainly a painter), was to work on the whole piece, and not to be too precious with any one part. So I moved on to vines, coming up from the dragon's tongue and tail. I have to admit - I really like drawing vines and leaves. I see celtic knotwork, and I think: that looks fun! I want to try that! But, then I end up staring at a blank page for a while. Instead, I have decided that vines are my version of knotwork, though they are not very distinct like knotwork can be. Regardless, I like vines, and I try to keep to the over-under rule of celtic knotwork, as much as I can. So you see this first vine structure in this first drawing, too.

Next, I moved on to the little flowers idea. There are lots of types of little flowers I could draw. I wanted to do something somewhat star-shaped - so - 5 petals. So, I started with this drawing with lots of little star-shaped flowers scattered over the vines.

I was going for different-sized flowers, to try to make them interesting. But, it just looked cluttered. I wasn't very sold on this sketch... I didn't even get around to drawing in the eagle. I still kept it, just in case Dave would see anything in there that I didn't.

Next, I tried a different vine structure, and the same type of flowers. This time, I drew in the eagle, and had him landing on one of the vines.

Hmm...... I liked the leaves sort of outlining the flat frame part on the sides.... but wasn't sure how I felt about the rest. This would be just another sketch to see if there was any redeeming value. I did like the idea of the eagle being integrated into the vinework, even if it was in such a literal way. Here, I kept with the star-shaped simple flowers.

I still wasn't feeling it, though, so I kept drawing. I drew another arrangement of vines, this time going further with the outline idea around the frame. I also made some different flowers, like flowers I have enjoyed carving before. That might make them more distinctly "me", too. I was starting to like this one. I drew more vines, dangling from the inside top. I liked the look of this. I wasn't sure what, exactly to do with whatever came down into the center, but I knew I liked the idea. I thought it could help bring us into the center part, that Dave and I had been talking about having as something more merging our two styles. I was hoping Dave was formulating some ideas towards that center, while I was working on the top. Meanwhile, I was starting to feel good about this latest sketch:

I drew in some background to help make it easier to see. I had reached a point where I wanted input from Dave, so I sent these 4 sketches over to him. I also told him I was concerned about how literal the eagle was, and wondered if he had any suggestions for how to make it more stylized. I also wondered if he was having thoughts about the center part, as I was still drawing a blank about that. I also told him that I wasn't too concerned about the placement of the flowers, but was interested in what he thought of the different vine configurations, or if he especially liked a certain type of flower. Like I said - I just wanted some input from Dave at this point. I just hoped I hadn't given him information overload. I think I was already there. Let's see where Dave goes next!
- Laura

P.S. As an afterthought a few days later, I made an attempt at a stylized eagle - made of vines, and fitting into the rest of the vines. I also wanted to see how another type of small flowers might fit - this time, broader petals, like buttercups. So, despite the probably-too-many other sketches of eagle and flowers, I ventured into one more, and sent it along to Dave, to consider along with the others. Here's that last sketch:

For anyone new to this, lovespoons are a traditional Welsh folk art. David Western and Laura Gorun are lovespoon carvers who have very generously donated their time to create a one-of-a-kind masterpiece in support of the Left Coast Eisteddfod, a Welsh performing arts festival for the west coast of North America. This is David's second year of creation in support of this event and we are very grateful for his and Laura's generosity in sharing their work with us all. For a chance to win their spoon this year, click on the donate button on the blog or in the right-hand column on this page under the Left Coast Eisteddfod Competitions button and be sure to note that your donation is for the lovespoon.

Reprinted with permission from David Western's blog , all material 2010, David Western --

Potential customers are always surprised that creating the sketch for a lovespoon design takes as much time and effort as it does. As much as I wish I could just dip a bucket into a never-end well of ideas and pull out a finished drawing whenever I felt like it, it rarely happens that way. In fact coming up with the initial design spark or theme concept is the hardest part of the whole process. Generally, I count on a good third of the total time involved in the creation of a lovespoon to be taken up in design work.

Which is why, when Laura and I began trading some ideas via email to see if we could come up with a start concept, I figured it would be quite a while before anything much started to come together. Sure, we did have a couple of initial ideas such as our plan to work with the idea of '2' and the idea of incorporating symbols of both Wales and America, but scant else after that! So it was a complete surprise and shock when after only an hour or two this lovely sketch appeared in my inbox.

Laura had been working on an idea for a spoon with two layers and had mailed the sketch over to illustrate some of the descriptions she had mentioned during the emails. The design as shown, is a way to mix organic and traditional designs while using the double layers to highlight the '2' idea. Talk about a great start to the project! A lot of guys would be delighted to have this as a working drawing, let alone having it as a 'rough sketch'. I can already see a couple of potential ideas lurking in there and feel like we've rocketed over the hard part already!
- Dave

When Dave first asked me to join him for this project, I was very excited, so my mind was flooded with thoughts, but very disorganized. How would I make some sense of this chaos, and merge these ideas with Dave's? How does he approach coming up with a theme, or what elements to include, or what message to convey? Then, Dave suggested "two" as a theme, which made a great basis, and helped give some direction to the chaos in my head. So - Here I am, getting to work on a spoon with this carver whom I admire so much - naturally, I hope to learn from him, and hopefully even try something a little ambitious. I am so excited, I probably inundated him with thoughts and questions. But then, we started discussing ideas over email, and before I knew it, some ideas were easier drawn than described, so I sent a sketch over to Dave. It was especially to show him the 2-layer "bridge" idea I'd had on a recent design, but I got carried away and drew the rest of a spoon, too - trying to illustrate a few other ideas we had mentioned. I didn't intend for it to be a starting point, but once Dave suggested it, I realized I liked it, too. So there we were! This collaboration thing seems to be going well!

We had talked about playing on our strengths - as far as I can tell, everything is Dave's strength, and I suppose some of mine will reveal themselves. For instance, it seems I may be good for general shapes or concepts. Someone once asked me which I liked better: designing spoons, or carving them. I don't remember if I was ever able to come up with an answer. But, I do know that I struggle when I get into the details, so I'm hoping Dave doesn't. I am excited to see what happens next!!
- Laura

For anyone new to this, lovespoons are a traditional Welsh folk art. David Western and Laura Gorun are lovespoon carvers who have very generously donated their time to create a one-of-a-kind masterpiece in support of the Left Coast Eisteddfod , a Welsh performing arts festival for the west coast of North America. This is David's second year of creation in support of this event and we are very grateful for his and Laura's generosity in sharing their work with us all. For a chance to win their spoon this year, click on the donate button on the blog or in the right-hand column on this page under the Left Coast Eisteddfod Competitions button and be sure to note that your donation is for the lovespoon.

Reprinted with permission from David Western's blog, all material 2010, David Western --

I'm very excited to be working on another lovespoon for the Left Coast Eisteddfod! After the success of last year's spoon and the enthusiastic response it generated for the Left Coast Eisteddfod, we decided to make it an annual event.

This time, though, I wanted to try something a bit different. I'll be designing and carving this lovespoon in concert with Ohio lovespoon carver, Laura Gorun, so it will very much be a joint effort! Laura is relatively new to lovespoon carving, but her spoons have the sophisticated design and elegant craftsmanship of someone who has been at it for much longer!! I'm certain that working with her is going to yield a really marvelous lovespoon!

Although we will be separated by many thousands of miles and have only ever met through the internet, we plan to design the spoon via lots of back-and-forth emails, taking advantage of the incredible opportunities for collaboration the electronic age has opened up.

Our 'theme' for the lovespoon will be "2." As it is the second year of the Eisteddfod, the number 2 seemed a good jumping off point for the design. We also thought that with one of us being male and the other female, one of us fairly new to carving, one an 'oldtimer' and with us living in two different countries, 2 seemed to crop up everywhere. The challenge now will be for us to work that into a viable design!!

When it comes time to carve the lovespoon, we will carve half the spoon each. Like all carvers, we each have elements that we are good at and some that we are not quite as comfortable with, so we will attempt to divvy up the carving so that we each work as much as possible to our strongest suit.

This will be a unique experiment for both of us, especially given that lovespoon carving is generally a pretty solitary endeavour. For both of us, working with another set of ideas and attitutes toward lovespoon carving will both open design doors and create some challenges!

The plan is to work up the design over the next couple of weeks and then begin the carving process. This blog will illustrate what we have been getting up to and will show the whole process from initial rough ideas to the finished piece. Both Laura and I hope that you will enjoy following along and that you will be inspired to donate to the Left Coast Eisteddfod for your chance to win the completed lovespoon!!

Next week we'll post the first set of drawings and then the hard stuff starts!

In the meantime, we hope you will visit us at:

www. BlakesPA.com to view Laura's handmade lovespoons and www.davidwesternlovespoons.com to view David's work

Reprinted with permission from David Western's blog , all material 2009, David Western --

Competitions for the 2010 Left Coast Eisteddfod have been launched on AmeriCymru and we're hard at work planning this year's physical event in Portland, Oregon.

Online competitions this year include poetry in Welsh, Spanish and English with judges respectively John Good , Geraldine Mac Burney and Peter Thabit Jones ; short fiction to be judged again this year by the very excellent Lloyd Jones; Images judged by photographer Glyn Davies .

David Western has very generously offered to create another work of art to support the 2010 event and this year will be collaborating with another artist, lovespoon carver Laura Gorun of Ohio.

David was born in Cardiff but emigrated to Canada, where he now lives in Victoria, British Columbia. Dave has been carving lovespoons for over 20 years and is the author of The Fine Art of Carving Lovespoons . This spoon will be Dave's first collabation with another lovespoon artist and he is delighted to be working with Laura on it.

Laura, a native of Akron, Ohio now lives and carves in Worthington, Ohio. Laura is of Welsh descent through a paternal grandfather and "relatively new" to lovespoon carving. More of her work can be seen here .

This year's blog will follow the process of the creation of the 2010 spoon, with contributions from both artists. As a starting point, they have decided on a theme of "Two" for this year's spoon: two countries, two carvers and the second Eisteddfod. Collaborating on the designing and carving will be a new experience for both Dave and Laura, especially since they live and work in Canada and the US, respectively, a couple of thousand miles apart. The inevitable challenges and learning experiences for both carvers working together should add an interesting twist to this year's blog and the carving experience. On behalf of the Left Coast Eisteddfod, we at AmeriCymru thank you both very, very much for the contribution of your talent, your creativity, your labor and your generous kindness and look forward to the journey of creation of this spoon.

Happy Saint David's Day 2010!