By the way, the background in the photo is another project that is taking place as the box was built.
My brother said something on one of my last visits with him.
"MakerUnknown, I had a problem with that name for long time but I think I get it now. There's more than one Maker Unknown."
My brother although a high functioning professional his entire life, elected official in his town, running an architecture firm, was a waker and then a baker. Blazed a bowl at 8:30, again at 9 and so on. So I put his comment in my head to think about it later.
Some old dear friends or is it dear old friends? got ahold me, they needed a box, a special box, to fit inside a suitcase. A wedding present for their oldest, the newly wedded couple are moving to South Africa with what they carry in suitcases.
Asked a couple questions, are they vegetarian and did they have some special fabric they could send to me.
Michelle fleshed out the son's journey into adulthood, I only knew him much younger. Filled me in on the new wife.
Thought a bit on it, then started. Pulled out a bunch of pieces of wood I've been saving from other projects. Some of them decades waiting for me to do something with them. Then I just begin to put pieces together with the loosest of intention. I wanted a swirling circular to it. I knew that much. There's a center in there for you to find.
Kinda did this with as little mind I could find. Don't think too much, whatever you do will be right.
Made a-to-size cutout of the top and gave to Annie to crop it for me. She did a crop that I hadn't considered before. Sometimes you need that outside look at something to give you a new perspective. I didn't choose her crop, but it suggested one to me.
So everything sorta just happened, the whole box is like that. Glue things together, don't fuss too much. And then you back design it, put the design into a narrative that fits the design.
Two halves, two people. Right side all straight and right angled, the other half all dynamic angles.
But still that swirling center connects the two sides. Dig those arrows to the center that are coming from the central triangle.
The top and four sides. All different.
The two halves needed an internal counterpoint to itself. Each side needed to be tempered. Tilt a square in the right half to balance that side. Straighten up a small rectangle in the left half.
Have a bunch of process photos but I'll just do one for sake of brevity.
Intriguing though, isn't it?
The outside of the box.
One of the pieces of information exchanged at the beginning was to philosophically push the box toward simple truth and away from something highly polished.
Very rare I burn the MU into something.
Who is the Maker here, who is the Unknown. I get what my brother was telling me. I picked up the name MakerUnknown from one thought but got fresh perspective on it from what a stoned out brother said to me.
To me MakerUnknown came about from my philosophy that the thing I'm making is more important than who made it. There shouldn't be an ego associated with the object. My brother's take was one of a higher order, The Maker, who is guiding the build, the design, the narrative? He was referring to The great Maker Unknown. Not that I'm a follower but my point here is, I just let the box build itself. I didn't plan nothing but let it happen. And so who is the MakerUnknown?
The Inside.
The outside is sanded to 800 grit with three coats of Hassui Ceramic. The inside is not that. The inside, the heart, is messy and loose. So I designed stuff on the inside to fail, designed to see how these two react to the matters of the inside.
The inside will need some maintenance. At some point, something will need fixing.
And there's no judgement here. Will they let the inside go to weather and collapse on it's own, will they try and jerryrig a quick fix, will they totally redesign it? Again no judgement on the direction that is chosen.
It's also a bit of a struggle to open it. Good. There should be some difficulty to access the inside, the center of something.
Eyeballed screw placement, fabric cut with a razor, sewn letting the sewing machine to have some fun, threads cut too long, button sewed on with a single thread,
It's a place for love letters, table of contents of life, of to do's and not do's, pictures, of sacks of spice, something broken waiting to be fixed, a hundred bucks, dried something, a ring.
Where's it going to require some maintenance?
Why does that dark arc in the wood match the curve of the hat's brim? Whose design is that?
The Maker is Unknown.
An Addendum
There are but two people I've been following since 1970. Speaking of maintenance, this just came out from one of the two.
