This funeral urn was created for a fellow woodworker. To select the material for it, Kelly met the man’s wife in his studio and looked through his wood stash. Kelly chose some figured cherry, an offcut from a project he was working on at the time of his death. She could see his layout marks and the notes he had made to himself on both the offcut and the other boards for his project. Kelly loves that his urn is made from the wood he last handled. She wanted to create a safe and sacred interior space to house the ashes, and the urn she created feels like the “comforting shape we make with our hands as we cup them to gently hold something fragile.” The sides of the urn are bent laminations. The interior of the box is gilded with copper leaf.

FIGURED CHERRY, EBONIZED CHERRY, COPPER LEAF, COPPER DOWEL, 5D X 17W X 4H

—Kelly Parker, Parkville, M.

From Fine Woodworking #305