One of the first projects many novice carpenters take on is the box and I’ve continued to make different versions of it. The crates pictured were made for a travelling exhibition stand used by an art gallery at trade fairs. The crates were needed to protect the artwork in transit and would then be used as plinths to support and display the work during the exhibition. 

When making multiples, or a set, of something – and this is true of these crates – an added visual dimension is created by organising the wood grain so it ‘reads’ across, up and down over the surfaces of the objects when they are viewed as a complete group. In this case, all the crates could be arranged so as to present a continuous wood grain pattern.