What can be said, This is one big spoon: the biggest we have seen purple or otherwise.
The World's Larges Purple Spoon is 14 feet tall and is mounted in a flowerbed.
"Monstrous, purple spoon unveiled in East Glacier Park at the Spiral Spoon
"Well, the thing of it is, I hate wasting wood," said Joe Wagner, co-owner and operator of The Spiral Spoon in East Glacier Park Monday, May 30. The artist responsible for creating a line of unique and individual carved, wooden spoons explained that every scrap of the 30 or more species of hardwood used to make the items can themselves be turned into more things for sale.
Wagner said she started using leftover pieces of wood too small for a regular sized spoon and turning them into "Breakfast Buddies," which are half-size butter spreaders with a flat scoop bottom. Finally, she said, the only thing left that hadn't been turned into products was the sawdust.
Taking that as a challenge, Joe designed and executed a spoon that stands 14-feet high, a structure that was unveiled Monday morning to the enthusiastic cheers of some 20 East Glacier residents gathered for the occasion. Starting last April, she and her husband Charlie backed the sculpture with plywood, then used 55 board feet of Styrofoam to shape the bulk of the form in order to save weight. Finally, sawdust was mixed into what Joe calls "sawdust mache," painted purple and hoisted into position on its steel and concrete platform by Will Salois of East Glacier Sunday.
"It took about seven weeks and 200 man-hours," Wager said, adding it was local artist Bob Folsom of East Glacier who suggested a formal unveiling of the sculpture Monday. Equal to the task, Joe and Charlie put up fliers around town, leading to the unveiling. While Joe acknowledges it isn't the biggest spoon in the world (she says that one is 52 feet long, has a nine-foot cherry in it, and it lives in Minnesota), she is relatively certain hers is the biggest purple spoon, or "aubergine" as she calls it.
Asked why the spoon is purple, Joe said there are two reasons. "First, what's the point of making a 14-foot spoon if it isn't purple?" she said. "But mostly we're making more spoons in exotic woods than before, and this one looks like it was made out of purple heart." Joe and Charlie opened the Spiral Spoon in East Glacier Park in 1999, and Joe says the business has only grown since they began. "Now we're both making spoons full-time," she said."
Source: Cutbank Pioneer Press