Keepsake Box for Jillian

                                                                                   In the late summer of 2010 my cousin asked my Dad to build a keepsake box for his new granddaughter.  Of course he said that he would be glad to and set about picking out wood and a    design.  The project was slow going however because Dad was often  sick and he tired  easily  due to the effects of late stage liver cancer.       When Dad died on December 6th I inherited four sides of pretty pine and strong sense of responsibility to finish what was started.  

     My cousin said that all he wanted was something really simple- just a box-no lid or anything-whatever would be easiest for me.                                                                                                                      

     Fine, I thought. I'll put a bottom in the thing spray some lacquer on it and call it good. 

And I tried to do that.  I really tried to do that but it wouldn't work. Those four sides of pretty pine resisted every attempt to  be made into anything other than what they wanted to be.                                                                  

     "What? What is it that you want me to do with you?" I asked. Silence ensued. "Well?" I queried over my shoulder to no one. Again, silence. But not just regular silence. A pointed silence.  A silence which eventually began to speak to me using negative affirmations. "How about this?" I would ask. "What do you think of that?" I wondered.  As time went on I finally saw that no one would be happy with a sloppy piece of crap, least of of all my Dad, the meticulous craftsman I could now feel looking over my shoulder as I worked.  Things began to come together and I could feel direction and approval as clearly as if Dad were right beside me.

   

     The box got a proper base, a tan brushed felt lining and a frame and panel lid with an inlay made from a crosscut section of caragana wood. Our house had on one side of the yard a long and unruly tangle of hedge which ,as a youth, I battled countless times over the years while trying to mow the grass under it as well as the flat-out horrific job of 'trimming the hedge'. When Dad first showed me these medallions I couldn't believe that such beautifully intricate and delicate patterns could come from an entity so malevolent as that damn hedge. He had six or eight pieces which he'd kept for probably twenty years in a box in his shop and looking through them I saw one that appeared to be something of a combination heart and rose. While at the time I felt like it was an inspired stroke of woodworking genious to use it as an inlay for the box I eventually came to see it as a gift for which I did nothing more than pick it up as one might pick up a nugget of gold noticed under ones' shoe.

     As the final touches of planing, sanding, fitting and finishing progressed the wood took on a luster and glow which, even from a pretty piece of wood, was enexpected. I loved looking at it- running my fingers endlessly over it. This piece went beyond having character. It had soul.

I carved the initials JAK into the inlay and inside the box on one of the wooden borders I inscribed Art & Skip Tucker.  It was done.  Good enough to proudly give away.  Thanks Dad.