Topping it off: box lid design

Words and photos: Andrew Potocnik

Check my garage and you’ll find columns of empty cardboard boxes stacked inside and on top of each other. I can’t let an empty box pass me by without wondering whether I should put it aside for the day when it will come in handy. I suppose it’s the result of growing up the son of WWII refugees who never let anything go to waste. There’s nothing wrong with that, but there is a limit to how many things you can save.

Small off-cuts can be put to good use in lids, as for the author’s Osage Orange Box, top and above.

Why make box forms?

How does this relate to the boxes I make? I’m not sure, but I am intrigued by the thought of what is inside a box. Sometimes its outside shape tells you something about the contents, at other times it’s pictorial or written information on the outside, but most often there’s an element of mystery as to what you’ll find once the lid is lifted. I have a book titled 400 Boxes: The Fine Art of Containment and Concealment, which I think summarises where my intrigue lies.

The boxes or lidded containers I make are rarely for a purpose, but as an exploration of form; hence I like to experiment with shapes and materials used for finials. I also like to use contrasting coloured timbers so that each element stands out; however, it still needs to meld with accompanying elements. Another thing that attracts me to boxes is that I can create interesting pieces and only use a small amount of wood, so that off-cuts can be put to use.

The lid of the Burl Cap Box rests on a lower rim which highlights the natural edge of the bowl.

Balancing angles

Sometimes a piece of wood catches my eye and I can see a shape alongside its profile. This was the case with my Fascinator Box where the endgrain in a log section of hairy oak just demanded a closed round form be used to highlight the prominent radiating medullary ray. A quick sketch on the log with a piece of chalk and the wood was left on my bench for the idea to evolve further.

Fascinator Box, hairy oak. ‘The endgrain demanded a closed round form to highlight the prominent medullary ray.’

Over a few days I decided the lid needed to slope down towards its centre, something quite different to my aesthetic for lid shapes, however the finial concept only developed when a pair of off-cuts from another project caught my attention.

Two half-circle pieces had been waiting for the right project to come along, and here it was, even though it broke many of my self imposed rules on successful design and visual balance. The leopardwood ‘ears’ were off-centre and sloping across the lid, but by testing a few different angles, a form of balance was reached as they were perched on the side of an ancient redgum dome, just like a fascinator hat you might see at the horse races.

The lid of the Burl Cap Box rests on a lower rim which highlights the natural edge of the bowl.

Edges seen and unseen

Drop-in lids, like the one used in the Fascinator Box can be varied to suit the needs of each project. Four of the boxes shown make use of the same basic idea, but vary in how they are applied. The Burl Cap Box has a lid that rests on a rim just below the natural edge of the container itself, so the burl edge becomes the key feature and the lid acts purely to support the organic bamboo finial as it rises above the box.

The author’s Fluted Jarrah Box has a tenon inside the collar which creates a border.

The Fluted Jarrah and Mountain Ash Boxes have lids with tenons that fit inside a collar and add solid borders to burl wood – these contrast not just in structure, but in colour as well. The same concept has been applied to each lid, where an insert of contrasting timber is then capped with a finial or handle; one organic, the other turned.

The highly featured Mountain Ash Box has a contrasting inset collar and lid.

Contrasts add highlights

Contrasts in colour and texture are key features of the Maple Box, which also has a drop-in lid held in place by the handle on top of the textured upper section. The lid features blister- patterned maple, while the handle is plain maple cut that highlights its growth rings without competing for attention with the blister pattern. When viewed from above, the textured border highlights this pattern, and could work well as a sculptural wall piece. This section was made from redgum, textured with a diamond shaped burr held in a micro motor.

Drop-in Maple Box with contrasting textured redgum lid

Once all radiating lines were cut on the face and edges, the surface was wire brushed to remove frayed fibres and a spirit stain then applied. To ‘soften’ the solid black colour, a couple of shades of grey paint were mixed and sparingly dappled on with a sea sponge. Sometimes too much contrast can be overpowering.

Pop-fit lids

To add a feature to the Huon Pine Box, I added an insert of highly figured Huon burl, which is glued into a hole that allows the burl to be seen from both the outside and inside of the lid. Why show off only half the wood? This lid is a suction, or ‘pop-fit’, lid just like that of the Osage Orange Box. By turning a tenon that pushes firmly into a rebate, friction that holds it in place makes a ‘pop’ when the two are separated.

The Huon Pine Box lid has an insert of highly figured Huon burl that allows the burl to be seen from both sides.

By extending the tenon on the Osage Orange Box, I was able to incorporate the resulting gap into the overall design, highlighting the edges of both the top and bottom of the box. You can see by the size of my hand that this box is only about 50mm in diameter, and was turned from a branch that was too good to not use. Normally I wouldn’t make the base as tall as this one, but as I began removing unwanted wood, I realised that a tall base would suit this piece, lifting it up from a display surface, adding to the overall feeling of an Asian temple.

How do ideas evolve?

As far as ideas go, sometimes it’s the wood that guides the form, and sometimes it is a form that I’ve seen in my mind’s eye that has lodged itself in my ‘cranial computer’ waiting for the right moment to be applied to a new project. For a completed piece to work visually, you need to consider the entire form and then break down components that will meld together to make the piece balanced and complete. And who knows, maybe there will come a day when I make a box that I’ll be put in when I go!

Andrew Potocnik is a wood artist and woodwork teacher who lives in Melbourne. Learn more at www.andrewpotocnik.com