Woodworker: Chen Li

As a student at Rochester Institute of Technology, Li was assigned to make a reliquary (a receptacle for keeping or displaying sacred objects) with a door and a drawer. He made this small maple desk (15 in. deep by 20 in. wide by 33 in. tall) to showcase and preserve his childhood memory of stamp-collecting with his grandfather, and to encourage himself to continue with the hobby. The desk has two identical mitered frames, top and bottom, with mortise-and-tenon “pillars” and panels that form the box and drawer carcase. Li joined the legs to the box and aprons with slip tenons.