Terry Widner is an artist creating sculptural wooden spoons under the name of Spoontaneous. After being born in 1955 in Roanoke, Virginia he was raised in a Kentucky orphanage without any exposure to the visual arts.
After high school he enrolled at Eastern Kentucky University and earned an Associate's Degree in Ornamental Horticulture, exposing him for the first time to basic design principles. While working as a Landscape Designer he developed a deep appreciation for trees and shrubs and how their varying shapes and textures could alter and enhance the surroundings.
Terry experimented with woodworking, making walking canes, wooden boxes, small sculptures and various other pieces. In 1991 he carved his first and only smoking pipe and entered it in The Tinderbox National Pipe Carving Contest where his pipe was awarded the Grand Prize. In addition to the cash prize, his work was featured in a national woodcarving magazine.
Through the years he filled sketch pads with wood projects of all kinds but found it difficult to finish one project before beginning another. This created a bottle neck of incomplete projects and sometimes years would pass before another piece was attempted.
In late 2009 Terry began to concentrate on wooden spoons, inspired by the work of Norm Sartorius and his own love of wood. This focus on wooden spoons freed the creative bottleneck and hundreds of spoons have been completed since. Each spoon is radically different than the ones before, some bearing only a small resemblance to traditional spoon design.
The designs vary from figurative work such as 'S-s-s-spoon' where the handle resembles a coiled snake and the spoon bowl is suggestive of the snake's head, which is elevated above the surface as if ready to strike. 'Dieter's Spoon' is carved from mahogany wood with dried rose thorns circling the spoon bowl and extending down the handle, discouraging anyone to deviate from their diet.
Many of his spoons are simply studies of nature, allowing the wood to be featured in almost a natural state. "Juniper Root' is a beautifully weathered piece of root with a spoon bowl sculpted at one end. Other spoons are delicately carved like 'Square Knot' where the handle appears to be two strings tied at the end to form a fragile knot.
A relatively small portion of his spoons can be deemed 'functional'. Most are 'nonfunctional' while the remainder fit into a category of 'dysfunctional'. Humor finds its way into the work and many of the spoons are inspired by a play on words. One spoon entitled 'Bi-Polar Bear' has the bear smiling when viewed from one side, but when viewed from the opposite side the bear is growling.
Terry's spoons have been noticed by collectors and have been added to collections in the USA and several foreign countries. His work has been included in the recently published book 'A Gathering of Spoons' by the noted collector Norman D. Stevens. One of his spoons was also included in the exhibition booklet by the same title, published by the American Association of Woodturners.
Terry is intent on creating a cohesive and varied body of work that explores the limitless design possibilities of wooden spoons.