When I first approached the fragment of wood to be made into a container, I immediately thought of clams. Clams use little surface area to create a rather large inside space due to both of their shell’s convexity. With minimal surface material, the curvilinear shells create a void for holding their insides. My initial desire was to create. Container that mimicked the same spatial reasoning as a clam. The only problem with using the clam as a model for this project was that clams have natural hinges made from muscular tissue for the connection of their two shells. The hinge allows the clam to open and close, something my container would also need to mimic. Hinges, however, were not allowed for this project. I thus needed a way to make the general shape of a clam – a thin exterior allowing for maximal space – without using nails or any other supplies.
At first, I thought of literally carving out of the inside space of the wood. I would have to take a narrow tool and literally scoop out the inside, leaving an exoskeleton of the wood quarter. Knowing the scooping method would take years with the tools we had available, however, made me reconsider my plan. Instead, I turned to making an open faced box. In my first plan, the bark-covered edge of the wood would have served as a base and connector of the container. Now, I was going to assemble an interconnected box through different pieces of wood.
While the construction of my project was not too difficult, the planning part was especially tedious. I had to make sure that each part was made to seamlessly interlock with the others. I drew my design out multiple times before I attempted to do any actual cutting. Still inspired be the clam, I set out to keep the natural shape of the wood as the structure of the box so the container would essentially be the size of the piece of wood itself.
The first step was to cut three thin pieces of wood. By creating three more pieces from my original, allowed me two have two large sides and another piece of wood to cut into smaller pieces to form the base of the container. Having used my dad’s table saw growing up, I was familiar with how to make clean, even cuts. I lined up the piece of wood after making three small, even marks and slowly slid the piece through the saw two times. I was left with three symmetrical, thin pieces of wood.
After sanding down each slice of wood, I sketched out how I would turn one of the thin piece into three smaller pieces for the base. I carefully sawed off the bark, and then roughly divided the fan-shaped piece into three smaller units. Once completed, I shaped each piece into a more rectangular form. I had three pieces of wood to build the base from. The piece of wood taken from the middle of the fan shape was longest; I decided to use it as the base. The other two smaller pieces were thus the sides that would join together the base and the two larger fan-shaped side pieces.
Before final assembly, I wanted to first connect the base with the two small sides. To do so, I made a small incision across the bottom of both sides with the chisel. Akin to how one assembles an Ikea book shelf, both smaller pieces stood vertically and the base slid in horizontally. I was left with a structure that would stand on its own: a base and two sides standing up. This piece served as the backbone for my container. Once finished, I returned to the other fan-shaped pieces of wood. I wanted them to slide down onto the two pieces of wood that were currently standing up, so I cut two identical slits so that each piece would easily fit onto each of the side pieces. I was left with a container with a small base and large fan-shaped sides.
Due to the small nature of the space that is actually enclose by four sides, my container is best used for holding something with a longer shape, such as pencils or chopsticks. Because the two sides were very thin, there was a small crack that formed on one of the side pieces. Fortunately, the small crack in the wood does not inhibit functionality. Unlike those who carved out wood to make space, building this container was not a laborious or time-consuming process. Visualizing how to not only create surface area but literally construct the connection of disparate pieces was difficult. Ultimately, having more materials and tools would have made this process a lot easier; the ability of making something out of one material, however, was rewarding.
