Spoon tragedy

My daughter Hannah said something wise while learning to snowboard this winter: "Dad," she said, "sometimes when you fall down, you learn something."
Spot on, little one!

I carved this little eating spoon from apple wood this week, and I was pleased with the results.  Smooth finish, nice shape and transitions, and did some new things with the kolrosing: experimenting with heavier and lighter lines; a sort of cross hatching to create volume in the trunk; and leaving some of the coffee staining in the grain behind to indicate the leaves of the tree wile carving away the rest to get nice contrast between the trunk and the background.  I like the way it turned out.


Here is another shot, this time with the flash off.   My mistake is now pretty plain.

I pushed the thinness too far, and a crack has now opened up.  Such hubris.

So there is my little spoon tragedy.  I am sure you can relate.

Aristotle defined a tragedy as something that evokes pity and fear in the audience: pity because the audience identifies with the character, and fear because the audience knows it could happen to them too.