The 10th Challenge

The Wooden Spoon
Tools extend the powers of the hand. Tools expand the world to be touched. The spoon was, at first, literally, a splint of wood improvised to collect for sipping the broth of boiled beast. Which came first: the soup (a word also derived from the sound of sipping) or the spoon?

In turn, spoons are shaped and sized to match each of the worlds they touch: there are spoons for dispensing soup and salad, there are spoons for hot tea and iced tea, for salt and sugar, and, of course, for ice cream in individual portions.

This is the method of Leonardo’s imagination: look deeply, patiently at a task at hand. Start with slivers of simple lines. Match the tool to the task in shape, scale, movement and materials. An invention is the utensil which most efficiently serves its portion of the world.

The Challenge
Spoonfeeding…teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.
E.M. Forester

Play with your spoons. Dig into familiar and unfamiliar
materials. Mix its common and uncommon purposes.
Shape with it; shape it. Serve up new meanings to explore
the shape of the world.