Triptych Boxes

I was recently commissioned by a long-time client to make a box. He gave me beautiful slabs of some redwood burl (photo 1) with the instruction to ‘go be creative’. He rarely uses the boxes I make, instead preferring them to be adornments in his home. Knowing the piece didn’t really need to function gave me great creative freedom with the form. In this article I will discuss the design, construction and embellishment of the piece I call Triptych.

Design

As I started my design process* the ideas I was sketching felt more like vessels than boxes. Eventually I started exploring my ideas in 3D using rigid foam insulation (photo 2). I will often model smaller objects full-sized using rigid foam as it’s a quick way to start to refine shape and proportion. Additionally, I can cut it on my bandsaw or tablesaw and shape it with rasps and other tools. Ultimately I settled on a triptych, three small boxes that would relate to each other based on their shape and surface embellishments. The three mockups