wooden spoon, photograph and text by Justin Gove

During a heavy snow the winter before last, a large limb dropped from my parent’s beloved lilac bush. A sad day for mom, but one that provided my father and me with a surplus of spoon wood. Lilac is a twisted, cracked, difficult wood to carve; but it smells like the flower when you cut into it, and the grain is streaked with purple. Carving this wood I’m reminded of the lilac bush in full bloom, and blanketed in snow.