Spoon + Hook: How every piece tells a story

Spoon + Hook

How every piece tells a story

Anneliesse Gormley has planted roots in Asheville. While the Kentucky native only arrived in North Carolina in 2010, she has since established Spoon + Hook, a one-woman operation that created unique, artisanal wood spoons, vases, cooking boards and decor. 

On a typical day, you can find Gormley at her home studio carving spoons or casting dried flowers in resin but Spoon + Hook has been a winding journey that allowed her to carve a passion into business. 

In 2016, Gormley was bartending during a stretch of major life transitions. That year, her grandmother gave her a family heirloom that had been passed down from generation to generation: a wooden spoon. Gormley was amazed by how much a simple piece could be used and loved for hundreds of years. 

Gormley soon purchased a hook knife and carved her very first spoon. While the spoon was rough around the edges, she still has it today. Gormley began to attend local craft markets, selling her spoons around $10 each despite the fact that it took around three to five days to create each. But over time, Gormley’s business began to bloom. 

“Working with wood has always been somewhat second nature for me,” said Gormley, who attributes her interest in the craft to growing up as the middle of five children and always receiving hand-me-down clothes and dressers from her sister.

Gormley is entirely self-taught. She refined her craft by watching Youtube videos and finding other carvers through social media. But this didn’t come without challenges, especially because woodworking is a male dominated industry. 

“Being a female, I never wanted to get things wrong, and I knew I never wanted to look like I didn’t know what I was doing,” said Gormley. “So it was a lot of fake-it-till-you-make-it in the beginning.” 

In 2018, Gormley left her bartending job and made the leap to pursue Spoon + Hook full time. While her artisanal spoons will always be the business’ signature product, Gormley has explored other creations, including wooden boards that have been merged with resin-dried flowers to create floral scenes. Gormley has always been enthralled with flowers, and she looked for ways to combine them with her woodwork since starting Spoon + Hook. Another way she does this is with her wooden vases that aren’t afraid to take on a little more unusual shapes. 

Some of Gormley’s favorite NC things:

Favorite Flower: “Straw flowers, which are native to Australia, and amaranth, local to N.C.”

Favorite Thing about NC: “The history, folklore, and the hidden gems. My favorite hike is Max Patch in Asheville.”

Business grew thanks to the incredible quality of Gormley’s pieces and her connections in the woodworking community. On top of that, she never hesitated to take on a big project. 

“I had people say...can you make 100 spoons in a month? And I said, yes and I just like, cried and got through it.” 

Gormely also credits her community for her success. Friends and family supported her work, as did the greater Asheville community.

“One of the most lovely things I think about Asheville is that people really rally around each other.,” she said. “I’m convinced that someone could be like, a craft pencil maker, and they would thrive.”

While Gormley has felt supported by her community throughout 2020, the unexpected year has forced her to scale back her operation. She is currently producing primarily spoons and smaller items to her shop remains approachable for those on a budget.

Thankfully, the time when it took three to five days for Gormley to make a single spoon is gone. She can now finish 12 spoons in a single day, and she’s only getting better.