Penboxes
There came a time in the mid '90's when I was finally very confident and comfortable making craft items with continued accuracy. I felt then that I was ready to do a larger batch, a substantial production run. I decided that my new penbox design would be the perfect object to reproduce, but it would require new and improved rock solid jigs to keep the set ups accurate for the duration of the run. I did a run of 80, with 30 of them presold, which was necessary to put aside the time to hunker down and get to work, and to buy a few new CD's to play during the hand sanding stage.
The box is machined out of one solid block of Australian lacewood, with the lid staying married to each individual box so that the grain continues to run through the entire piece. I picked this wood because of its remarkable grain pattern, which is drastically different depending on how it's cut. The corners are 1/2" solid copper rod that have a black patina; which was an excuse to dive into the world of chemically heat-treating metals to get some amazing effects. The lid nestles into these 4 positioning points with a very satisfying click which sounds like a small musical instrument. The handle is carefully machined out of ebony, with a small copper stem. The inside is lined with black leather.
If I were to do a run of anything this precise and small again, I'd limit it to 20 - 30 pieces.
I had a buyer of one of these boxes track me down recently to tell me how he was still absolutely blown away by the design, precision and detail in my "mini sarcophagus" as he labeled it. Even though I had taken a job as plant manager of a casket factory shortly after making these penboxes, I hadn't seen them that way. (I guess you could entomb a gerbil in it if you really wanted to, but a shoe box buried in the back yard works just fine I think.)
I see this box as a beautiful punctuation mark on an uncluttered desk. When my desk gets too cluttered, I gently rest that saved penbox in a special spot it my desk drawer.
I'm planning on eventually putting my kids' baby teeth in 2 separate boxes one day.
The box is machined out of one solid block of Australian lacewood, with the lid staying married to each individual box so that the grain continues to run through the entire piece. I picked this wood because of its remarkable grain pattern, which is drastically different depending on how it's cut. The corners are 1/2" solid copper rod that have a black patina; which was an excuse to dive into the world of chemically heat-treating metals to get some amazing effects. The lid nestles into these 4 positioning points with a very satisfying click which sounds like a small musical instrument. The handle is carefully machined out of ebony, with a small copper stem. The inside is lined with black leather.
If I were to do a run of anything this precise and small again, I'd limit it to 20 - 30 pieces.
I had a buyer of one of these boxes track me down recently to tell me how he was still absolutely blown away by the design, precision and detail in my "mini sarcophagus" as he labeled it. Even though I had taken a job as plant manager of a casket factory shortly after making these penboxes, I hadn't seen them that way. (I guess you could entomb a gerbil in it if you really wanted to, but a shoe box buried in the back yard works just fine I think.)
I see this box as a beautiful punctuation mark on an uncluttered desk. When my desk gets too cluttered, I gently rest that saved penbox in a special spot it my desk drawer.
I'm planning on eventually putting my kids' baby teeth in 2 separate boxes one day.
