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.
The 10th Leonardo Benefit
Thursday, April 1st 5:30 – 9 pm
Celebrate creativity.
Enjoy fine champagne, elegant salads, and inventions
for the spoon from the creative kitchen of Doug Coffin.
Support the work of the Eli Whitney Museum
through your presence and your purchase of
artwork invented for this event.
Principal Underwriter
The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation
Sponsors
Brown-Forman
Lehman Brothers Engravers
Robert Lisak Photography
B-P Products
Broken Arrow Nursery
Contributors
Koffee on Audubon
Service Point
Artspace
Photography.by Robert Lisak www.robertlisak.com
