Update on Slöjd Life

[I wrote most of this August of 2018, and it’s October of 2020 and I’m recollecting more stories, and digging up even more photos to add.]

It's August now and it's been a heatwave in London since I got here in mid June. I can't complain though as I spent the entire winter carving under a large tent in the below freezing woods of upstate New York.

Most of my editing happens in a hotel room, in my truck where I often sleep, or sometimes on a train in England like you see below.

I've had a really busy and nonstop year since November.  I was teaching in Texas, and demonstrating at the Filson store in Austin. I had a couple months during the winter to carve a run of new kuksas and experiment a little. Then I was off to co-host a Sloyd event in March at The Vesterheim Museum in Decorah Iowa with Jögge Sundqvist. We taught a bunch of great classes over two weeks there.

Talking kuksas with Surolle.

It was time to get class setup, and the crew at Vesterheim is always a huge help!

It was a big honor to find out Fred Livesay was taking on of my classes. He’s one of the best carvers in the world, so it really kept me on my toes.

We had such a great class of characters! Everyone has a story and it’s something I’m very interested while teaching.

I have to say it really means a lot when the place that is hosting you goes so far out of their way to bring more sunshine into the classroom. Some of the local ladies made us some treats!

One of my students Garth, brought a spoon carved by Wille Sundqvist, Jögge’s father.

and just like that, my three day kuksa carving class was over in a flash!

In the second class I got to know these two locals better! Rebecca Hanna teaches and is a wonderful carver. I have one of her kjenge (two headed bowls) and love it. To the right is Kim Glock who is another great carver.

I’ve always made it a tradition that I take my class out to the pub to use our cups or bowls we carved. Not only is it great to get some laughs by the locals and barkeep, but it’s a great learning experience both socially, and to test out the nuances of your design. How else as a carver can you know how well something works, unless you put it to your mouth and drink from it.

You would think this was planned.. things often happen to me like this where the cosmos align. The ale I’m after just happens to be named “Axe”

Another night after class Jögge wanted to go out and we heard there was a local joint in town with some cheap beer and blues music going on. Jögge and I have a lot of things in common. A life swinging the axe, and Rock n’ Roll! We’ve been in bands before taking on a wooden life. So Fred and I met up with him and we got to spend the evening listening to jams and talking. We got into some great discussions about our lives and what brought us here. Why the hell do we do this?

Personally thats the part I live for. Traveling to be with other like minded people and the conversations are gold. I started carving as a daily carver ten years ago. A couple years into that I really was inspired by Jögge’s work and his story. He was also kind to me when there wasn’t a lot of hobbiest carvers posting much on social media. This was right before the big online craft boom happened. We didn’t even have instagram back then! There wasn’t a huge treasure trove of information, books, or videos back then like we have now.

But I really connected to what he was doing, and it spoke my language. At this point we’ve shared a venue a couple of times, and seem to run into eachother at just the right time. So personally as a fan of craft, roots, and history, I was having a great time just living in it, and realizing I’m a part of it as well. It was a huge honor to me to be asked to teach along side him. I really need to write more about this and what has driven me to take on this lifestyle. Even though I’m constantly traveling to teach, at this point it’s hundreds of people a year sometimes, I still feel like I’m a beginner in this big journey. It’s good to keep a perspective. But really most of the time I’m not thinking about anything, I’m just lost in my carving listening to the sounds of the knife slicing through crisp hardwoods.

I look forward to seeing Jögge again. Music and the blues seem to bring us together. I have a funny memory of us kneeling in the mud at Spoonfest in England a couple years ago, by the pub tent jamming some improv blues songs with a pile of friends around laughing and singing. This is what craft is all about for me.

On the walk home before the three of us parted ways, we had a quick snowball fight in the deserted streets.

Next day in class students were at the finishing stages of their cups. Scott Johnson who I had just met blew me away with this stippling technique he came up with using needles which reminded me of tattooing really. I always learn things from my students, it’s important to always be curious and interested in everything.

Fred has to be one of the funniest people I know. He’ll go at any length to make people laugh. At lunch he was watching me use my cawl spoon Owen Thomas made me. It’s a Welsh thing, and it’s really good at soup sipping. So Fred splashed some water on his shirt when I wasn’t looking and said “I can’t figure out how the heck this thing works..”

A quick dip in the snow after lunch to wake up a bit before getting back to class.

It’s always a pleasure to have family’s that come to take my class. It just happens that these three guys, a father and two sons are the descendants of a fantastic photographer Knud Knudsen who I believe was one of Norways first photographers. A real pioneer of his time with glass plate negatives, and the images just haunt me. I really want to travel to Norway with an old camera. What a trip to have this family in my class! Knudsen captured the very last of that old hand made world. Being a professional photographer and carver, this just resonates with me soul.

Notice the wooden clogs, and wooden bucket…with wooden hoops!

It was another great class!!

The musueum is stuffed with entire roomfulls of handcraft that was brought over by Norwegian Immigrants. I love to wander around the building looking at all of the hand made details of fine craft.

For a moment sit and imagine you’re a poor immigrant that has nothing to lose, and uses the rest of the little bit of money they have to move to America for a fresh start. Then imagine you can only take a few items with you. Many of them brought ale bowls, spoons, and small items. It just shows you how much this craft really meant to people.

I have some plans to make some of these after handling these in the musuem.

These tina (bent wood boxes) are on my radar as well. They’re such beautiful and functional objects.

I thought Magnus Sundelin would enjoy the first two spoons here. He has a similar style of spoon his grandfather carved. I have one and its decorated with spiderweb!

One of my cups on display for the big Spoon Carving Exhibit. This was on loan from Harley Refsal’s personal collection.

I had a great time behind the scenes at the archives level. One of my students who worked for Vesterheim who was in charge of the documents took me back to check it out!

This is what my storage unit will look like one day when I’m long gone. Just archives after archives of material.

After a couple hours of intense study in the museum, which we were on our best bahavior… it was time for a quick snowball fight.

What makes The Vesterheim a unique place for me to teach is grants me access to it’s archives and collections. What other place can you take a class where the teacher teams up with an actual registrar to curate some items to look at that are sometimes older than our country itself! Jennifer Kovarik is so fun to talk to and we always make sure during each of my classes to spend a little bit of time studying pieces similar to what we are carving.

To hold something this old and well used is magic. I have photographs of other carvings that I have special plans for so I can’t show them now, but here are a few other beautiful pieces we pulled off the shelves for class.

It’s one thing to be a maker, making things all the time. But do your carvings tell a story? I like to tell my classes about vessels. What is a vessel? A vessel carries something. A boat certainly does, and so does a drinking vessel, but a drinking vessel carries more than just the drink. It in itself is a time keeper that carries many generations of stories. That’s what I like to think about when I carve each item. There is intention.

I’m not just making a bunch of things to sell, or to get attention on the internet. There’s more to this, and it’s much bigger than all of that.

There is so much to learn and make. I will need many lifetimes.

To me these are real treasure chests. The stories they hold go back a very long time and made it here all the way from Norway.

Look at the kolrosing on this birch bark canister. Notice the technique of how the bottom is folded over, this is not easy to do and can noly be done once a year as the bark changes seasonally. It amazes me that each items is just shouting at me to tell their stories, but often they have no written story about them. So they are a mystery. A couple of items in the archives I’ve actually helped solve some mystery which was really cool to be a part of. We all look at things differently, an archivists sees one thing, a carver sees another.

One of the spookiest items in the collections. From across the wide room I noticed this murky and kind’ve freaky old broken fiddle called a hardingfele. It has a dark story, that I’ll tell another time! Folktales say the devil is associated with the Hardingfele, in fact many good players were said to have been taught to play by the devil, if not by the nix, a shapeshifter up to no good. This is a part of craft I’ve been very interested. Much of it predates Christianity, and is involved in magic. One of my mentors who I saw a couple weeks after this, told me what he has studied. Him and his wife Elsa are two of world famous experts on Norwegian Folk Craft. Phil sat own with me to talk to me about my carvings and why I should start decorating them. At the time I was against decoration.. “a carving should sell because it’s designed well, not because it has a pretty drawing on it!” But he was the one who finally convinced me after we had a conversation about symbolism and how important it used to be. In his words, the people of the old gods believed in black magic, and white magic. It’s not at all what we’ve been taught in school, and a lot of this was almost wiped away from history by the Christians. It’s all there in the old history books if you know where to look.

One of the evenings Jögge gave a great presentation and talk about his craft. Churches as a structure are just great for gathering people. The old ones were made before electronics and sound systems. So the preacher could easily project his voice during a sermon using the natural acoustics of the wooden building. Him and I both loved that it was in this old church! I’m not religious so I always thought it was fun to be in a church but not for the reason you’re supposed to be. I’ve played gigs in them, recorded albums in them, gave talks, etc. Jögge laughed that his father would’ve thought it was a bit funny, Wille was a religious man. That’s when we came up with the name “Reverend Slöjd!”

So he asked me to take this picture..

I’m glad I log these little stories somewhere, as it’s been an interesting journey so far. Most crafting happens at peoples homes or workshops, but my workshop is really my suitcase so I can go around to all the other carvers I want to meet. Interesting things are happening.

after the show it was time to go have a beer at the pub. More talk about life, and craft.

One night I could sleep so I went for a guitar walk during a snowstorm. I love when it’s snowing and the streets are empty. Everything is quiet and abandoned.

Then I packed up and sped up to Grand Marais, Minnesota to teach another sold out class at North House Folk School for Wood Week which is a great event to be a part of. It’s a seven hour drive if you don’t stop to pee!

On the road again.. I get why most people don’t live on the road and travel as much as I do. It’s tiring putting in the long hours and miles. You don’t get paid and it’s too hard to carve and drive at the same time. But it’s work I must do. I’m on a mission.

I’ve learned so much as a teacher. When I started out it wasn’t easy to get information from people about what you’re actually supposed to do. It’s very complicated and there’s a lot of things you put a lot of work into that you don’t get paid for.

Class Preperation - is every important when you’re teaching. I like to setup the night before, lock the doors, blast some music and get in the right headspace. I have to arrange the room just right so I can easily flow around to each student, but also make a very creative atmosphere. It’s a good time to tune up tools and carve a couple kuksas. Often I’m out felling a tree at some point, or bucking up more rounds with a chainsaw to ensure the wood is fresh for class.

I’ve developed a unique teaching style and process of carving kuksas. Over the years these flowers have become very popular around the world. People are catching on.

Originally I came up with the idea on how to distract a student some hollowing too fast and carving a whole through their first cup. There’s always one in every class! The idea is you work around the rim in circles, carving slice by slice leaving each chip intact. It’s not as easy as it looks and requires a lot of control and feel. This way you remove the material systematically and evenly. I can usually get five or six nests out of each cup. The students don’t know I’m doing this, but I’m giving them a simple (on the outside) task. Carve me a perfect flower. Then repeat. Later I admit my deception and trickery which always has interesting notes from the students on how it made them slow down in a zen state.
To pull this off you’re carving blind and cannot see the tool underneat the nest so you’re carving completely by the feel and vibration the tool makes as it slices through end grain on each cut.

I love winter. His “hat” was carved by Alastair Dargue from the UK, an amazing bowl carver. Birch bark hair for Beth Homa, Spoon and Kuksa by me, and some sami weaving Fred gave to me, that Charlie Mayo gave to him.

Morning light. Some cups I carved, and a couple that Fred carved during my Vesterheim class.

Oh Grand Marais Minnesota and your inland ocean Lake Superior. This is where I was when my house burned down in 2014. This is where fate was sealed and I’ve been on the road pretty much since.

It’s always a good time at North House Folk School. I took a chainsaw maintenance and safety class. It’s always good to brush up and it was taught by one of my best friends Marco Good.

I got to know Sam Martinez during this trip. We spent a good amount of time together after class. She is teaching me how to make spring rolls here. She’s a wonderful person and has such a great attitude towards life, and craft.

My other favorite Co-Conspirator - Roger Abrahamson who is arguably the best bowl turner in the world. He specializes in Norwegian Ale Bowls and he’s one of the reasons why I had to get down to the Vesterheim to teach. “They need you Alex!” Also take note on how he’s demonstrating ‘how not to start a chainsaw.’

Teaching can be exhausting, and if you’re skilled enough you can nap anywhere.

Hey it’s Jay! The Mayor! No really though, he is the mayor of Grand Marais. I’m teaching him how to regrind his axe after hours. It’s always good to do a favor for the mayor.

Wood Week is a great event to be a part of. But since I’m teaching and often demonstrating I didn’t have much time to wander over to the other classes much. But there’s always a lot of really top notch handcraft going on. The place is buzzing and there are wood chips everywhere.

I can’t seem to locate my photos but Jay Haavik gave a great presentation on his work as the lead carver carver on the Oseberg viking ship replica. It was fun to pick his brain about possible theories as to why the vikings went about building and decorating ships the way they did.

Finding a place to stay is always tricky when I’m in town teaching, especially during wood week. Luckily Marco usually a place for me to stay. It’s good I get to catch up on stacking firewood, feeding the horses, and learning some lumberjack skills from him. He’s really great at felling trees and used to be a horse logger.

Betsy Bowen. She’s got a great shop in town where she makes and sells her beautiful woodcut prints.

I stayed up just outside of town for a while, and at some point I made it down south around the lake to the twin cities to stay at Fred and Roger’s shop. After teaching four back to back classes, and all that driving I wanted to make some things that have been on my mind.

I’ve had a major interest in knife boxes, specifically ones from the old world. Jögge and I were both interested the handful at the Vesterheim museum which I’ll probably write about separately another time. But I’ve started making some simple prototypes.

It was about time I go pay Tom Dengler a visit. He was there from the early beginnings for me as well. He was in the fire gang.

Look at this tool wall.

I was working on another knife box, and Tom’s current shrink pot he’s finishing. He’s a shrink pot wizard.

Late nights with Fred. Always carving, always sampling fine brew out of wooden cups.

This was taken at some point during wood week. I’m hollowing a kuksa and Fred is chopping out a stirring spoon.

Something I’d like to spend more time in is my portraiture. I went from living in NYC as a phorographer working in fashion, to living in the woods as a spoon carver. I’ve slowly been blurring the lines between those lives as well as being a musician. I’ve been channeling that into my film making.

Every once in a while I like to capture a moment from a friend or passing stranger. I feel like we’re losing this type of craft now that the world is over saturated with cell phone pictures and everyone being so used to a camera being around.

Caleb Mattison who started as intern at the folk school and now lives and teaches in Grand Marais.

I met Liesl during the fire, so she’s in the gang too. We’ve spent so much time together crafting, talking, and playing music. She has some awesome tunes from her biker days!! She’s an amazing multifaceted person, and her wooden specialty is kolrosing.

After hours tool kit - axe, check. Ale bowl, check. guitar, check.

There is always people excited to share skills. I love the instructors gathering for that reason. Hundred or so teachers all hanging out at the folk school. So much happens!

This is where I met Laura Ricketts from Indiana. She is specializes in knitting in the Sami tradition. Her work is wonderful.

Check out this rockin’ jacket Fred gave me. Beetlejuice is one of my style icons.

No one would ever believe me if I didn’t have a photo to prove it but she somehow got me learning to knit in the Sami tradition. Well, thats a bit of a lie. She let me loose for a couple minutes after keeping a close eye. We have this fun idea to knit some mittens sometime that incorporate my skulls!

Laura showing Sam her knitting technique.

Then there are other crafters who are a bit different, different enough from the rest that I sometimes wonder if we’re related. The only other person I know thats more obsessed with kuksas than me. The legendary Harley Refsal. Who is most noted for his reviving of Norwegian Flat Plane Figure Carving. Without his work, that craft may have disappeared. I’ve been friends with Harley and his amazingly talented wife Norma for a long time now. Harley is one of the original people that kept bugging me to come make the trek to visit way back when.

What you’re seeing in this photo I can do for hours and hours. Carving away with Harley. I have some special plans with Harley in the next couple of years. Everytime I see him, he stops he and always looks me in the eyes saying “Alex, you know, you’re doing real mission work.” He follows my travels online and we keep in touch. You can learn so much carving a cup sitting next to someone for a while. The tools disarm people and they open up. I love that about handcraft. These once peasant crafts are very social. You can see it the work.

The best! The legendary Roger Abrahamson - The World’s Giant Bowl Turner! Rose on the left, Peter Henrickson on the right.

It’s like a folk craft revival. Elise Kyllo on the right. Her specialty at the school is wool felting. A week after this event she invited me over for a birthday dinner which was really sweet of her. Since I travel so much I often spend my birthday alone so that really meant a lot to me.

An amazing winter sunset at Elise’s off the grid home she built.

and….. classic. Happy Birthday!

Cecelia Schiller (Left) and Phil Odden (Right) Imagine talking about black magic with this Sloyd wizard?

Oh my favorite time of night at Noho. The witching hour when the guitars fly out of their cases into the hands of the innocent song singers.

Marco pickin’ on my resonator. I bet ten bucks he’s singing a John Prine song!

You can guarantee there are people weaving bark, carving spoons, knitting wool, the story telling, and others trying to answer the mysteries of the universe all in the same room. I love that culture that crafters bring together in the evenings together.

Anna looking like a 1930’s wool spinning starlet!

Mike Schelmeske - He carvers really nice cups!

At this point in the story I think I’m mixing stories from Wood Week where I was teaching kuksas, demonstrating and presenting, to the instructors gathering event.

Sometimes when you need to bust apart a stubborn round of wood, you need the super beetle. Or looney tunes hammer.

Don’t worry I was just hamming it up for the shot.

Mike Loeffler, Mr. Bird Bowl himself!

Imagine being in a room full of such beautiul craftsmanship. Betwen his table and mine, there must’ve been over a hundred pieces carved, and these are current. We don’t collect the things we carve, we sell them. Roger is another road warrior. He does the festival circuit eight or nine months a year. So you’re seeing the work of two craftspeople who are constantly making, , studying, learning, putting on a show, and evolving.

Roger looks like the leader of a cult I’d actually join. Drink thy drop from thy ale bowl! Skål!

Sam’s happy face after realizing we both have a love for Dutch Klompen, so she ran to her room to go get hers.

Roger has a very old collection of ale bowls. Mind blowing.

Skylar a previous student of mine, and past intern of the folk school turning a bowl. He picks a mean banjo too!

Another happy and successful class!

I stayed through May and June and soon after, I headed west to The Milan Spoon Gathering which was a smash success. Jane and Peter Mickelborough were our special guest for the event and 80% of our crowd were new to the event!  I sold just about my entire batch of new kuksas, demonstrated for over a hundred people, and met so many great new carvers. 

It's great to be a part of the planning committee along side Ron Porep, Del Stubbs of Pinewood Forge, and the fantastic Fred Livesay. My three week trip turned into three months when opportunity would repeatedly knock at my truck door every time I turned a corner. I have so many ongoing and amazing projects to write about from that trip!

Here's a shot of Del and myself holding up the giant spoon we started along with the rest of the Gathering. What a beautiful community project which was on display at The Vesterheim Museum! Largest hand carved crook in the world?  .. it may be.

I’ll write about the festival another time.

Waiting for my ride to Spoonfest with Will Risely (The Hungry Squirrel) That yellow brick I’m sitting on is my workshop.

Now I'm in London, Spoonfest just ended a couple days ago, which was a blast! It's so good to have these events where we can connect with old friends, colleagues, and new faces.  I'm back to carving cups to prepare for my return to the states in September. I have to say this has been  my most productive and busy  year ever. It's been a lot of work trying to run a business and travel, but so worth it and I get to surround myself with some extraordinary people along the way.

I'll be up at North House teaching kuksa carving during the Unplugged event, Jögge will be there too. Looking forward to jamming some blues with him.

I mention it here and there but I haven’t had a workshop since 2014. All of my carving happens outside whether it’s the back alley in London, or the boreal forest in Minnesota photographed below. It makes me realize how much more efficient and how much more I could make if I had a shop.

Some exciting news I've been meaning to write about..   I've been asked to cohost the second ever Spoon Jam in Australia with Peter Follansbee! I'm honored to share my corner of craft in a part of the world that seems so far away. Then a week later I'll be in New Zealand to teach. I have so much to say but can only download so much of my brain into a newsletter.

I think this winter I will take time off of traveling to hunker down and work on some wild designs I've been dreaming up over the last year. New evolution of the kuksas, some fancy knife boxes, some shelves, and a couple other things I have tucked away up my sleeves.

I just wanted to say that I'm very grateful to the people that have followed my journey, and who have supported my craft by taking some of it home. I couldn't do it without any of you and it feels great to be uncovering a craft that is a bit off the beaten path. Thank you for being apart of this. Here is a little glimpse of the new batch..