Alex Finberg

I first started spoon carving when I lived in Camden Town, London. I was really keen on getting into bushcraft but there ain’t a great deal of bush in London. Still I did my best, I harvested tinder conks from the local parks, raided our firewood pile for spoon blanks and watched my share of instructional youtube videos. I was longing for a deeper connection to nature and to develop a craft of my own, at the time these things were a distant yearning which slowly grew into a passion for spoon carving and green wood work.

Website: alexfinberg.co.uk
Instagram: @alex.finberg

My poor neighbours, I had a carving block and a 1.5 pound camping hatchet and I would carve out spoon blanks on the balcony of our council estate. I met Chris from onedaywoodcraft at the Wilderness Gathering and was inspired by his demonstration and passion for spoons, he encouraged me to go to spoonfest, by which time I’d left London, moved to Devon and from there the passion really grew, with a steady supply of green wood, and a few years of carving spoons under my belt, carving began to become a part of my everyday life. I have been fortunate to learn from some excellent craftsman: Adam Hawker and Friotioff Runhall being two who really inspired me to develop my carving

I am now an advocate for rediscovering our relationship to the everyday things we use, the land and trees they originated from and the people who made them. I am a forest school teacher and I run workshops in spoon carving, bowl carving, whittling and shrink pot making in South Devon.