See what happens when you leave two teardrops on their own together! 😉

After nearly 40 years of making the teardrop box, which has become one of my signature pieces, I decided to start turning them in various sizes, as they look so nice in a grouping this way. Often, if people have not seen the actual work, but just photographs of them, they don’t realize that these are boxes as the join is almost invisible. For this reason I wanted to show one of them open as you see above. The baby one is only just over 1″ in diameter, just big enough to fit a ring snugly inside. The bigger ones range in size between 2.5″ and 3″ in diameter. These are made in African Blackwood each from a single piece.

In a time when I was travelling and giving classes and demonstrations around the world, I worked on blackwood boxes to show techniques to my students. There was never enough time to complete a box and so the partly finished pieces would join others in my workshop when I returned from my tours. This year there has been no travelling and no teaching and I decided to work on these originally ‘demo’ boxes, to give them a life and purpose beyond the original. I incorporated new texturing, including a light red ink wash and appropriate inlays and really have enjoyed the creative process in doing this. The colour addition to the texturing gives a warm feeling and added perception of depth to the decorated surface.