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Choke cherry with black cherry lid3¼″ diameter x 3¾″ tall $49 Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine Choke cherry is a small tree, usually not more than six to eight inches diameter. This one grew to 18” diameter by the banks of Emerton marsh before it started to die about 25 years ago and finally toppled over and hung up in a nearby maple. The is the first piece from it after cutting away a lot of wood too far gone to turn. The lid is black cherry, a larger tree whose wood is common for cabinet work, probably from Pennsylvania. But what about the box? You’ll find a good use – perhaps sugar, or a cosmetic cream, assorted buttons, or for sampling malt balls one at a time. OK, two.
Cost each: $49.00 One of a kind
Porcelain, Poplar, Mahogany, Birch 4¾″ x 4″ Mark Baldwin, Surry, Maine $38
Sure it’s unique and pretty. It keeps butter spreadable at room temperature. It holds precious little things – jewelry, condiments, important coins, chocolate covered cherries. But imagine serving a guest soup in an elegant Japanese bowl with a one-of-a-kind lid. Nice touch, yes?
All the bowls are the same, the lids are all different.
Cost each: $38.00 One of a kind
Choke cherry 4″ wide x 3¾″ $48 Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine
Why should a gorgeous bowl just to be admired on a shelf? It’s made for a more active life as a go-to for malt balls, or candied truffles, or vintage jelly beans – don’t you agree?
This bowl came from a choke cherry knocked over by a strong Maine nor'easter. Down inside of the log was a soft bit that the grew tree around, but the result was too pretty to toss.
Cost each: $48.00 One of a kind
Choke cherry 4″ wide x 3¾″ $68 Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine
Maple with Bee's Wax finish 7″ x 3½″ Peter Kenison, Turner Maine $130
Turned from the crotch of two branches giving an inside view of the spectacular beauty of its grain.
Cost each: $130.00 One of a kind
Porcelain, Hackberry, Cherry, Birch 4¾″ x 4″ Mark Baldwin, Surry, Maine $38
8½″ x 3½″ $120.Peter Keniston, Turner MaineThis bowl and T-045 came from the same piece of wood that was split down the middle. Sold separately, but this and T-045 would make a handsome pair to display. Tung Oil satin finish.
Cost each: $120.00 One of a kind
Porcelain, Choke Cherry Lid 3⅛″ x 4½″ Mark Baldwin, Surry, Maine $24
The handmade one-of-a-kind lid helps keep a cup of tea warm, or delights guests as a lovely sugar (or mustard or what-do-you-think?) bowl.
Cost each: $24.00 One of a kind
Hackberry and Cherry16½″ x 1″ Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine $36As you probably know this is a stick for stirring porridge that Scots have called spurtle since 1528, at least. They may have gotten the idea from some porridge-eating kingdom that sent marauders to whatever place they landed. In the old days spurtles were long two-handed jobs for big kettles on an open fire. A boy in the Icelandic novel “Independent People” thought the spurtle leaning on the wall in his croft was alive.
(Look up the annual Golden Spurtle Prize for the best traditional porridge in Scotland.)
There have been variations on the spurtle but the ones I’ve seen in Scottish kitchens are mostly a fairly thin tapered stick.One was embellished by the maker, though not like this one. For an ordinary porridge eater the breakfast tastes the same whether the spurtle is plain or wearing morning clothes, but a dolled-up stick like this may have a better chance of staying in the family for generations.
Why this shape? It’s good for stirring. It gets into the corners of a pot. Porridge doesn’t stick to it as much as a spoon. This spurtle is longer than most modern ones – good for a small or especially large pot or two-handed work. Finished with walnut oil. Ready for the pot, or off-duty use as a light saber.
Cost each: $36.00 One of a kind
6¾″ x 3½″ $28 Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine Red cedar takes a rich finish when cut smooth and rubbed with coats of tung oil. It will carry any arrangement you make – whether twigs, weeds, berries, cherry blossoms, or grape and lifesaver kabobs. And for the kids? How about a daily arrangement on their own, no grownup advice needed, concluded each day with a selfie with vase? What a record, what a gift that will be as you browse through their evolution in clothes, haircuts, imagination.
Cost each: $28.00 One of a kind
One-of-a-kind, like all of the pieces here, this lid helps keep a cup of tea warm, or delights guests as a lovely sugar (or honey, or mustard, gummy-bear) bowl.
Porcelain, Tulip Poplar, White Birch 4¾″ x 4″ Mark Baldwin, Surry, Maine $30
Does it hold jewelry to warm a heart? or keep butter spreadable at room temperature? You can be sure it will find a good use wherever it lives, and there won’t be another exactly like it.
Cost each: $30.00 One of a kind
Porcelain, Tulip Poplar, Cherry 4¾″ x 4″ Mark Baldwin, Surry, Maine $36
It’s pretty, but it won’t have a life, perhaps into future generations, until you give it one. Have it hold some small precious things. Let it keep butter spreadable at room temperature. The maker pictured it on a dresser top or a cordial dining room table. How do you see it?
Cherry 4¼″ x 2″ $32. Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine
This charming little pestle will demonstrate its over-size power to grind (in any practical bowl) and to crush a garlic with its flat end. Besides all that, using this little baby is a captivating chore for a child.
Notice that there are two pieces of cherry glued together. The dark piece is from a log cut for WWI airplane propellers in 1915 but broke through the ice on Maine’s Green Lake when the woodcutters were towing a load to a sawmill. Scroll to T-003 on page 2 to see more about that. The lighter piece was cut and milled in the 1990s.
As this note is written there is a south-southeast gale blowing; the bay is full of white froth, minnows are jumping in a calm little nook in the marsh making brilliant white flashes among the hard-driving rain drops. It’s the kind of day you’re happy to be on solid ground, at the lathe.
Cost each: $32.00 One of a kind
Cherry and Sugar Maple 13½″ x 1¼″ $36. Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine There is text about spurtles throughout this site so we’ll skip it here. It’s not likely that you’ll find a spurtle with a handle like this anywhere else, and you won’t find another one here that is exactly like this.
Sycamore 5” x 2”Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine $70
This is an exceptionally nice example of spalted grain in sycamore, also called a plane-tree, which can grow to 100 feet and 500-years-old. It is native in mid and southern parts of the US, and widely treated as an ornamental or park tree. This one almost certainly was not cut here in Maine. Spalting, rare enough to be considered prize wood, happens when fungus inhabits some species of trees. It can have different effects. Look closely at how it works with sycamore’s unique wiggly little grain patterns.
Cost each: $70.00 One of a kind
Blue glass and choke cherry 4” x 6¼” including lidMark Baldwin, Surry Maine $32
This old Noxema jar was in the woods of a Maine farm probably abandoned during the great depression. It was half buried in the damp red dust from rusted-away cans, a memory of the time when that’s what you did with trash that would not compost or feed a pig.
The lid is from the crotch of a choke cherry that fell not far away. Down in the log was a grown-over soft spot, still showing a rim of bark and now filled with black epoxy resin. The lid fits the jar opening but is not screwed down and simply lifts off.
Fiddleback rock maple and teak 10″ x 1¾″ $36 Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine
Blade is 5¾”. The edge, sharp enough for anything spreadable or perhaps a cake, goes all around the blade. You can touch up the edge with sandpaper if needed (probably not). Finish is walnut oil, good stuff for eating and finishing. Boiled linseed oil, tung oil, and mineral oil are good food-safe substitutes to keep utensils bright. The blade comes from a bunch of firewood split while looking for the fiddleback grain. The teak is from making a cabinet for my sailboat.
Cypress and cherry 6½″ x 2″ $45 Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine
It’s a sweet little bowl made with three cypress pieces and one cherry glued together before the whole was carved on the lathe. Cutting down into the block revealed a small knot not quite in the center. We mention this in case you would consider it a flaw, or perhaps a feature. There’s no right or wrong to it, it’s just so you’re aware before you push “buy.”
Cost each: $45.00 One of a kind
Spalted Sycamore 7½″ x 1¼″ $70 Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine
Useful in many ways – sandwich, soup, or as a server – this classic shape shows off the beautiful grain and spalting. Sycamore, also called a plane-tree. and can grow to 100 feet and 500-years-old. It is native in mid and southern parts of the US, and widely treated as an ornamental or park tree. This one almost certainly was not cut here in Maine.
Arkansas Cypress5½″ x 1½″ $20. Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine There’s always something to make a sweet spot for the eye – twigs, a snip of evergreen, tall grass, pussy willows or ferns, party straws, the edges of a back yard or sidewalk. It’s a wonderful regular chore for a child.
This particular piece of wood is left over from making a truckload of those painted pillars stuck on the outside of a Toys-Are-Us store in New Jersey. How did the contract for making them come to a small shop in Maine, where 50 years later this little vase was born? It’s a minor tale of business in America: too long for here but drop us a note.
Cost each: $20.00 One of a kind
Spalted Sycamore 8½″ x 1½″ $66 Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine
This piece is a good example of spalting in sycamore. Prized for its varied beauty spalting is the beginning of decay, but not to worry, it’s perfectly strong here.
To keep this piece fresh, clean with a sponge, dry thoroughly, and occasionally wipe on some food-safe oil such as walnut oil (used here), or “butcher block oil or finish.” Actually, almost all commercial oil finishes, such as Minwax Antique Oil Finish, are considered food safe after they have cured for a few days. The stuff called “lemon oil polish” is not recommended.
Cost each: $66.00 One of a kind
Spalted Sycamore 9½″ x 1½″ $58 Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine
Perhaps you know a sycamore tree? They’re a varied family and often dramatic inside. Here’s a peak inside of one that will please the eye and bring a smile or two as it’s passed around the table with a pile of vegetables, slabs of meat, or a torte to end all tortes.
Dinner-size plate with a rich food-safe oil finish.
Cost each: $58.00 One of a kind
Rock maple crotch and black walnutMortar: 4” x 4” Pestle: 5” x 1½” $59. Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine
The crotch of a tree where branches and trunk merge is a confusion of interesting grain. An effect In this piece of rock maple is a tight density of the wood.
Each end of the pestle is useful. The rounded end grinds nuts, seeds, or whatever small thing you want to into smaller pieces. The flat end easily and powerfully mashes garlic so he skin politely flakes off. The pestle is shown twice here so you can see both ends.
The maple grew in Hancock County Maine where, after fading for many years, the old tree finally came down in a fierce Nor’easter. The walnut grew in West Virginia where a constriction crew was clearing for an overpass – but hadn’t finished hauling it to a landfill. What a gift to a passing carpenter!
This kitchen implement was made with a chainsaw, axe, and hand lathe tools – no automatic lathes or cnc machine in sight.
Cost each: $59.00 One of a kind
Choke cherry, white birch 4″ x 4″ including lid $59. Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine
Lidded bowls are lovely for keeping butter spreadable and fresh out of the fridge, or as an elegant server for condiments, sugar, salt, honey, or a string of pearls. The egg gives an indication of size and the bowl holds about a cup of uncooked rice. Hand made, of course. Finished with multiple rubbings of food-safe oil.
Choke cherry, white birch 5″ x 5″ including lid $74. Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine
This sweet bowl will keep a lot of butter spreadable and fresh out of the fridge, or many other treats or treasures for the table or shelf. The egg gives an indication of size and the bowl holds about a 2½ cups of dry rice. Hand made, of course. Finished with multiple rubbings of food-safe oil.
Cost each: $74.00 One of a kind
Choke cherry3½” x 2” $29. Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine
How sweet will this little pestle look in your kitchen? And how surprising when it demonstrates its over-size power to grind (in any practical bowl) and to crush a garlic with its flat end. Besides all that, using this little baby is a captivating chore for a child. Handmade, finished with numerous coats of food-safe oil.
Cost each: $29.00 One of a kind
Walnut with teak lid4” diameter x 3” H including lid $72. Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine
This piece is versatile whether for keeping butter spreadable and fresh out of the fridge or as an elegant server for condiments, sugar, salt, honey (do you have a dipper? Want us to make you one?), malt balls, or a string of pearls.
Walnut may be the most the prized American wood for fine woodworking or, in the old days, for durable fence posts. Tropical teak is a staple in the finest yacht work.
Cost each: $72.00 One of a kind
Cherry 4″ high x 3½″ wide with lid $69. Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine
You’ll or your giftee will see how versatile these lidded bowls are. They’re super for keeping butter spreadable and fresh out of the fridge. They’re elegant for all kinds of condiments, sugar, honey (do you have a dipper? Want us to make you one?), malt balls, or a string of pearls.
Cost each: $69.00 One of a kind
Cherry 3¾″ diameter x 4″ with lid $69. Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine
You’ll see how versatile these lidded bowls are. They’re super for keeping butter spreadable and fresh out of the fridge. They’re elegant for all kinds of condiments, sugar, honey (do you have a dipper? Want us to make you one?), malt balls, or a string of pearls.
23½” x 1½” Tulip Poplar $62Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine If it’s dough Jim Heckman has rolled and baked it. He received one of our long rolling pins recently and writes: “The length is perfect. The tapered ends allow you to apply different pressure on each side. It feels natural, like an extension of your own hands…. You feel the dough in your hands as you roll – unlike the rolling pins with handles on bearings and a center rod. I truly love it. It will be my go-to pin for as long as I bake."
Cost each: $62.00 One of a kind
7¼″ x 3½″ $86. Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine On the table or on a shelf this bowl will feel perfect for side dishes or condiments, assorted pocket things, jewelry, or malt balls. The woods are listed on the underside of the lid: cherry, sycamore, and American walnut for the bowl, tulip poplar and cherry for the lid. Hackberry is strong and is light enough for a child to use at home. The cherry inlay on the handle does nothing for its stirring ability but may encourage the owner(s) to keep it for generations.
Cost each: $86.00 One of a kind
3” x 3½” $46.Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine This little charmer is about the size of a teacup. It’s made to live on the counter or table with butter that will stay spreadable, sugar by the spoon, salt by the pinch – or what do you think? She’s a small gift that will keep giving for a long time.
Cost each: $46.00 One of a kind
8″ x 1¾″ White Ash with burned-in decoration Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine $36.
1 Cut a piece off a log, split it to dimensions close enough mount on the lathe, watch as the bits that don’t look like a vase fly off in a stream of pretty shavings until there it is, the shape of something to come. Burn in highlights, carefully drill out the center, apply coats of finish, sweep up the shavings. Write this note.
2 Imagine someone somewhere making a little ritual of finding twigs, or feathers, or the limitless combinations of cuttings and pickups that make a limitless number of arrangements to put that many smiles in the eye.
Choke cherry with a teak highlight on the lid 6″ x 4¼″ Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine $88
The bowl holds about two-and-a-half cups. The insulating wood and the lid helps keep your offering warm or cool, whether it’s your unique mashed potatoes, bread pudding with cranberries, cottage cheese scrambled eggs, whipped cream, or ice cream for the à la mode, or (of course) malt balls.
Choke cherry (Prunus virginiana), usually grows to only 6″ or 8″ diameter. This one grew to about 18″ thick in our yard on the banks of Emerton Brook (google), until it started to die over 25 years ago. We watched it age with us until it finally let go.
Cost each: $88.00 One of a kind
Spalted Sycamore 9¼″ x 1½″ $72 Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine
Sycamore was a tree of my youth. A large one lived by a trail in the woods where I played hooky. This bowl is made from another sycamore, not the giant that I touched when I escaped into Glover Park. But let’s look back; are there trees in our life that we can picture? I can see an oak that was as thin as my three-year-old arm. Being an unquestioning animist in those days I saved some of its leaves from the pile my grandfather burned in the gutter. When I last was on that street the tree filled the space between gutter and sidewalk, its roots pushing up a bulge in the pavement. I’m sure it winked at me.
8¼″ x 1¼″ Heart Western fir, playing marble, paint and varnish $136. Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine
These ready-to-hang pieces are bright for the eye and emotions wherever they’re hung, in an obvious or out-of-the-way spot. For the maker they are a delight to concoct—with a mix of clear intention and surprise.
Cost each: $136.00 One of a kind
6¼″ x 9″ x 1½″ Hardback “Sixty Years on the Firing Line” by Arthur Krock Secret compartment by David Schofield, Blue Hill Maine $46.
Arthur Krock was born in 1886, became a fixture in Washington as an old-style conservative pundit until he died 90 years later. Inside this secret compartment is a collection of subjects that he did not opine on in his decades with the New York Times.
5½″ x 8″ x 1½″ Hardback “The Life of Matvei Kozhenyakin” by M. Gorky Secret compartment by David Schofield, Blue Hill Maine $46.
If possible in these brutal days think to the golden age of Russian literature. Of all those great writers now familiar by name, if not by their actual work, none was more famous world-wide than Maxim Gorky, 1868–1936. Gorky was a Soviet man though it’s likely that Stalin had a hand in his death from “pneumonia.” There is no other Gorky book like this on the planet. Chances are that it will surprise somebody in a hundred years.
7¼″ x 1¼″ Wormy hackberry $38. Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine Fun for a child, small or full-size? The little white holes on the back are where an adolescent powder post beetle chewed its way out, looking for a pal. The bursts of color on the front are where the wood turner was having fun.
10¼″ x 1″ Cherry, walnut, Corelle bowl $90. Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine
The platter should make guests smile but wait until they dig into your appetizers. Clean with a sponge. Use with or without the included Corelle bowl.
Cost each: $90.00 One of a kind
9″ x 1″ White poplar $90Mark Baldwin, Surry MaineSpace for your choice of sweet or savory finger snacks arranged around a burst of color. Then, waiting for your next happy guests, the dish is a pleasant decoration propped up on a shelf. Finished with hard lacquer for easy cleaning with a sponge.
Cost each: $80.00 One of a kind
7″ x 2″ Cherry and maple $28. Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine
This vase is similar to T-073, which was sold. Here’s a comment from a customer that we quoted with # 073: “Before visiting my mother in her assisted living apartment I walk the edges of the parking lot and the runoff pond for bits of green and twigs for her dry vase. She changes the display every morning and admires it for the rest of the day. Her neighbor says, ‘She won’t tell me where I can get one.’ My mother can be a bit mouthy so I don’t butt in, but if she ever does share the secret please have a selection on hand.” These “dry” vases may be used for twigs or other interesting dry arrangements or for greens that may have to be changed every day. They will hold a small amount of water if you like.
7″ x 4″ Deep Cherry Burl $132. Temple Blackwood, Castine Maine
All burls are fascinating– the grain, the “deformities,” these signs of a tree dealing with stress. More than that, we pleasure in the beautiful evidence of life “dealing with it.” This one even can have a life beyond beauty – perhaps large cookies or where to find your eyeglasses, so you can join the tree in dealing with stress.
Cost each: $132.00 One of a kind
6″ x 2½″ Spalted Cherry $44. Temple Blackwood, Castine Maine Burns about four hours. You can see over it at the dinner table. Lovely piece of cherry. Comes with two candles.
Cost each: $44.00 One of a kind
5¾″ x ¾″ Spalted Birch $80. Kobutsu, Brooksville Maine What to say? A lovely little mirror of exceptional spalted birch, elegantly finished with a particularly time-consuming method.
7″ x 2¾″ Cherry $105. Temple Blackwood, Castine Maine Now this is a pretty, non-electric, 100% hand made knitting machine for the coziness of your living room. And, empty and adorning a shelf, it may even dumbfound some of your non-knitter visitors.
Cost each: $105.00 One of a kind
14″ x ¾″ Rock maple, teak $60. Mark Baldwin, Surry MaineThis maple has it all; it’s spalted, with tiny worm holes (no problem), and fiddleback grain. Handle is teak, Blade is 9½″ long. The edge is sharp enough for cutting cake and safe for a child. If needed (not likely) it can be touched up with sandpaper. Best washed with a sponge and dried. A rub with walnut or boiled linseed oil or “butcher block oil” will keep it bright. For a birthday? Wedding? Mother’s Day? Yourself?
Cost each: $60.00 One of a kind
7″ x 2″ $28. Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine A customer said, “Before visiting my mother in her assisted living apartment I walk the edges of the parking lot and the runoff pond for bits of green and twigs for her dry vase. She changes the display every morning and admires it for the rest of the day. Her neighbor says, ‘She won’t tell me where I can get one.’ My mother can be a bit mouthy so I don’t butt in, but if she ever does share the secret please have a selection on hand.”
5″ x 2¾″ Cherry burl $118. Temple Blackwood, Castine MaineWhat?? That’s a bluetooth speaker?
Yup. This is 1) a sweet-sounding unit and 2) Temple has turned it into a gorgeous piece of craftsmanship, perfectly fitted and finished in cherry burl.
The speaker itself comes from Rockler. Its site has over 300 reviews, about 90% of them four or five star. Google “Rockler bluetooth speaker reviews” or copy this: https://www.rockler.com/rockler-stereo-wireless-speaker-kit-with-2-speakers-and-playback-volume-controls
About 10% of the reviews are negative with two complaints: difficulty wiring the kit and volume of the on-off notice is too loud for the reviewer. (Mark didn’t notice this.) Temple has tested the assembly so it is totally enclosed and ready to go.
Comes with instructions and charging cord. When this one sells Temple can make another on fairly short order, though this is an exceptional piece of wood. Each piece is one is one-of-a-kind.
Cost each: $118.00 One of a kind
9″ x 4″ White ash $90.Temple Blackwood, Castine Maine
The original calabash bowls were painstakingly made from the fruit gourd of the calabash tree found in the Pacific, Caribbean, Indian Ocean islands, and in Africa. In Hawaii they were reserved for royalty until the late 1800s.
Modern calabash bowls are turned with the same round bottoms and sides. Done well they will rock a bit on a hard surface but not tip. Traditionally they would nest nicely on the ground.
This one is turned from a large fallen white ash in Castine, Maine, a good size for salad for two or three, or some other serving. Finished with walnut oil.
