a simple lesson in design.

The boxes here present a simple design lesson and were made by one of my students, Dan Burke, at Marc Adams School of Woodworking. The lesson is this. Use what you know how to do to share elements of significance from your own life.

As good as your craftsmanship might be, if you are not telling something of your own story, your work might be missing something.

Dan and his wife had acquired the tiles embedded in the lids of these boxes at the Indigenous People's Museum in Quito, Equador. So the tiles became the focal point of the work, in more ways than one. They had the experience of enjoying another craftsman's work enough to buy it and bring it home. The other craftsman's work is made even more beautiful and useful through Dan's application of skill.

You can practice the principles and elements of design, and learn the useful relationship between all the colors in the world, but work is made more lovely still, when it reflects in full measure, the human being that made it.

The excellently crafted boxes are the frame surrounding the experience.