Arts and crafts are sometimes seen as being that of the same thing, and to some extent they are. Though, beyond the materials and techniques that are used, one interesting difference seems to be the creators themselves. Until now, the magazine has been predominantly been focused upon more the arts than crafts side of things, be it in terms of painting, sketching, pointillism, surrealism, you get the idea. And for those more veteran readers, you might have also noticed a trend amongst these artists – they’re backgrounds. Indeed, it seems that the bulk of those who are enthusiastic painters, drawers and sketchers are somewhat inclined to do so from birth. Of course, there are exceptions to this, the brilliant photorealistic artist Ian MacKenzie who appeared on the cover of Edition 3 was a keen police officer and martial arts enthusiast before he become an artist for example. Yet it’s doubtless to say that those involved in crafts don’t tend to begin with a keen passion for art as your more typical artists do. Perhaps this is because crafts are frequently made to be practical as well as for aesthetic purposes, so it’s little surprise that many an engineer, tool maker and car enthusiast, like Andy McCloy, eventually become crafters. On the other hand, Mike here had neither strong practical nor aesthetic passions – instead for most of his early life Mike was in the Army.
‘I had no interest in arts or crafts’, Mike tells me, ‘though I was fascinated by historical art, particularly the Celtic side of it’. Yet it was this very interest that, years after leaving the Army, that would lead Mike to carve the intricate wooden pieces that he does today. Not long after he turned 40, Mike tells me, he began to became increasingly frustrated with how the likes of lovespoons and crafted spoons generally were being made and presented in welsh gift shops. So, in a manner no different to the Welsh folk of old, Mike picked up his pen knife and took it upon himself to craft ‘something more meaningful’, that wasn’t ‘machine made’ and that was more symbolic of the land they represented. Though, what exactly are lovespoons?
The origins of these spoons are largely shrouded in mystery, though, whilst many think them to have descended from ancient Celtic times and to have always had the likes of Celtic knots and crosses carved into them, this style actually came much later. On this note, lovespoons, as we know them today, most likely began as a form of romantic gift-giving by men in the seventeenth century, a time when they couldn’t simply just head to Pandora. These were incredibly labour intensive and required a great deal of skill to craft, something which undeniably made them all the more meaningful as a gift. Yet the oldest lovespoons from the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, aren’t embellished with dragons or intertwining Celtic vines but instead hearts and diamonds – designs we’d perhaps associate more with the 2020s than the 1720s. In fact, it wasn’t until the mid-twentieth century, when Welsh nationalism began to increase, that the more Celtic designs, like Mike’s, began to be carved into the lovespoons.
Commentaires