‘This hurts me more than you’: Why an Osoyoos artist is looking for broken wooden spoons

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Osoyoos resident Julie Delisle typically expresses her art through making and designing cakes but has recently taken on a much different kind of art project, one with a powerful message.

Delisle is creating a visual art piece made out of hundreds of broken wooden spoons she is calling “This hurts me more than you.”

“I saw someone else had done something in the same vein, they’d done a big canvas with a belt they dipped in black paint and beat the shit out that canvas with,” she said.

“They called it ‘Because I love you,’ and it got me in the feelings. I saw my own childhood version, which was a lot of spoons.”

The concept behind the project is healing from childhood trauma. She was disciplined with wooden spoons which often broke. Her hope is the artwork will open up conversations about childhood trauma, physical abuse and appropriate kinds of discipline.

“It’s a severe and archaic form of punishment and trauma isolates you, so this will get people talking about it,” she said.

“I’m experiencing a range of emotions while the project comes together. Just looking at it in its partially done state right now you can feel the emotion in it, it’s a lot to look at sometimes.”

After posting on social media sites in her community, Delisle is getting a lot of interest in the project, and a lot of used wooden spoons.

“I’ve had people bring bundles of spoons to my work and I got a little emotional about it, I didn’t think people would turn out like this,” she said.

She is finding used wooden spoons in thrift stores throughout the Okanagan, and buying new wooden spoons to trade for used ones at restaurants in the community. It doesn’t matter if the donated or swapped spoons are broken or burnt.

“The more used the better, used wooden spoons feel more true to the energy of the project compared to newly purchased ones,” Delisle said.

Delisle is currently looking for a big wooden wall spoon like the one that once decorated her grandma’s wall alongside a big wooden fork. It will be placed on a four-by-four-foot board with broken bits of smaller spoons layered around it.

“I’m looking for all the different kinds of wooden spoons that were used on me,” she said. “Even when I’m breaking the spoons, it hits me that the force I have to use to break them is so much. You really have to hit hard to break them.

“I can have a sense of humour about it but sometimes you’re sitting with the heaviness seeing all these broken utensils and being confronted with that hurt again. Sometimes it’s emotional and sometimes it’s just pieces of wood, but that’s the nature of trauma.”

While it isn’t clear when the project will be completed, Delisle said that isn’t the point, it’s the healing journey of the project that is important. She plans to show the final piece at local art festivals when it’s finished.

Go here to follow Delisle as she completes the project or find out how to send her used wooden spoons.