Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery displays art of the spoon

The art gallery, located at Royal Park, is showcasing the traditional art practice of wooden spoon making with a collection of spoons carved by Deloraine artist Allan Lane spanning more than 30 years.

QVMAG visual art and design acting senior curator Ashley Bird said the tradition of spoon carving dated back thousands of years.

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Examples of old spoons include Welsh love spoons that were presented as gifts of romantic intent, or Norwegian wedding spoons traditionally used by married couples on their wedding night.

"Here in Tasmania there's been a long folk art tradition of wooden spoon carving, and QVMAG has one of the largest collections of whittled wooden spoons in Tasmania," Mr Bird said.

"I'm not sure what it is about spoons that has made carving them such an enduring past time.

"At the risk of getting a lot of chefs off-side, I think it's perhaps the simple fact that the spoon does more in the kitchen than the knife or fork."

Mr Bird said spoons were a practical piece of cutlery that were useful regardless of whether a person was in the outback or dining at a Michelin star restaurant, and explained people had memories connected with the utensil.

"So why do people carve them? I think spoons remind us a bit of family connections, they have a practical use, and you can whittle a spoon using simple tools," he said.

"We all have memories of spoons, whether it's your mother feeding you medicine - here comes the plane - or eating hot soup when it's cold outside.

"Even Little Miss Muffet had a spoon for her curds and whey. It's also a reasonably simple shape to carve."

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However, of all the spoons Mr Bird has seen, he said those made by Lane were some of the most interesting.

"Allan Lane has been making wooden spoons since the mid 1980s, using a whole range of Tasmanian timbers," he said.

"In this collection of spoons, we have myrtle, sassafras, king billy pine, huon pine, blackwood and banksia. There's even a tiny spoon carved out of a matchstick, and a spoon carved out of an ice cream stick."

Not all the spoons in the collection are serious though, with a sense of humour behind many of the pieces on display.

"There's a fork spoon, a knife spoon, a spoon with a hole in it, a spoon that doubles as a pipe, and a spoon that's a musical note," Mr Bird said.

"There's even a spoon inspired by Edward Lear's poem The Owl and The Pussycat in which Lear talks about a runcible spoon - that's a spoon with elements of a spoon, a fork and a knife all in one, and we have one of those here as well."

If spoons aren't to the visitors taste, there are plenty of other exhibitions to check out at the gallery, such as the work in Tao Sublime.

The exhibit features the work of artist Tony Smibert and takes viewers on a journey of abstract landscapes.

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