New Masters of the Wooden Box [Paperback]

Short review:

I recommend "New Masters of the Wooden Box" highly!! It is a lushly photographed, inspirational box-making coffee table picture book with as much artistic and imaginative range as "400 Boxes:The Fine Art of Containment & Concealment" in a larger format, albeit with fewer artists and boxes shown. The major downside to me is the amount of page space New Masters dedicates to text about the artist's history or inspirations. I consider New Masters a picture book displaying stunning artworks, so I think anything on the page that isn't a picture is detracting from the book. Nonetheless, I find New Masters to be a valuable addition to my library of boxmaking books.

Note that New Masters is a book of artistic box design inspiration for "what to make" rather than a "how to build it" manual of boxmaking techniques. How these artworks are actually created is not shown, only the final stunning results.

One note on "New Masters" as compared to (or in conjunction with) "400 Boxes" -- many of the same artists and even some of the same boxes show up in both books. If we consider that both books cover a rather specialized subject (contemporary art boxes made from wood), it's not surprising that both authors would occasionally have to draw from the same pool of talent and workpieces to fill their pages.

Long review:

New Masters is essentially a catalog to accompany a show that opened in Sept 2009 at the Messler Gallery of the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship (CFC) in Maine and touring the USA thereafter.

The introduction of the book is 18 pages covering the history of boxes from ancient Egypt up to contemporary times and from cultures all over the world. The photos of historical boxes in the introduction are on par with the excellent photos shown throughout the rest of the book. Given that the subject of historical boxes and their uses could cover a great many volumes on its own, the introduction here is necessarily rather generic and abrupt in dealing with boxes in each historical age. However, it is wide-ranging enough and diverse enough in introducing containers I don't typically think about that I found myself eager to get to the next era covered to see what tidbits of info I would get on its uses of boxes.

The last part of the introduction was three-and-a-half pages of summation on the artists in the book and often a hint about specific work(s) from that artist. I think this is mostly a verbose waste of page space. I don't care what percentage of artists covered in the book are women or couples or any other grouping by type. I also don't want the author to coyly hint at the workpieces contained in the later parts of the book. My attitude on this part of the introduction was, "Skip all the blathering about, JUST SHOW ME THE BOXES!!!!"

The main body of the book covers the artists alphabetically by their last name, with each artist getting a chapter to him- or her-self. The first page of each chapter is a full-page photo of a typical box -- or two or three or so -- by the artist. There is also at the front of the chapter a portrait of the artist, typically shown at work or in their studio. That is followed by six pages of extremely well-photographed less-than-full-page pictures of the artist's work interspersed with text on the artist's history and/or inspirations for their style. One of the things I like about New Masters over 400 Boxes is that in 400 Boxes the quality of photos varied somewhat, with some of the photos rather out-of-focus or having odd coloration. All of the photos in New Masters are very well done and consistent in presenting the boxes and other works in a very good light.

That "other works" brings me to a minor nit I would pick with the editors of New Masters -- not all the works shown are boxes, even if they are stunningly imaginative and extremely well-crafted. In a boxmaking book I expect to see boxes, not the occasional table, chair, tool, or non-container art piece which is included in the pages of New Masters. I can forgive the inclusion of the bowls and basket-like objects included, since as containers they are cousins of solid-sided boxes and, in the hands of the very clever artists shown, can strongly blur the delineations on what should strictly be called a box.

At the rear of the book is a brief bibliography and an index listing alphabetically each box by title and each artist by last name.

Bottom Line: This is a richly illustrated compendium of contemporary state-of-the-art wooden boxes from a delightfully wide field of artisans. One of the best books for boxmaking inspiration on the market.

I have been making boxes for a number of years now, have designed my own treasure chest box from the ground up, and also have made over 150 differently designed boxes and crosses without copying anyone elses work. I was looking for a little inspiration as I do from time to time and thought this book might be of value. I was wrong. The designs for the most part look like they are from another planet and for the life of me I can't even figure out what some of the items are supposed to be. There are tables, there are chairs, and there are art forms made in wood. Now wait a minute!!!! I thought I was buying a book entirely about boxes. If you turn wood there are a lot of turned boxes in here....or I guess that's what they are supposed to be. Most of the designs left me scratching my head and wondering why anyone would want to make half of these things anyway. There are a few good examples of the rectangular and square boxes we all have grown to love, and make, but not nearly enough to even peak my interest. I guess I'll be reselling this book soon as I don't see any reason to keep it for inspiration.

Unfortunately this books title is a little misleading, "New Masters of the Wooden Box"' strays very early in the pages from the Wooden Box to Furniture Styles and Sculpture, which in itself may not be a bad thing but regrettably I am interested in primarily Box Makers and Box Design.

Sadly this book does not really fill that bill.

If you are after a Book dedicated to Box Making then there are far more enjoyable books than this one. I suggest one of Andrew Crawford's fine books or one by Doug Stowe or one titled "400 Boxes".

If you are just after a book with some woodworking in it then this would do, for me, sadly it was a disappointment and a poor investment of my funds when considering the Book's Title.

Which holds true that you should never judge a book by it's cover and indeed in this instance by its Title either.

Cheers

Steve