On a shelf, wrapped in a canvas bag, lies a carefully crafted cherry chest thats about four feet long. Its made with hand-cut dovetails in the corners, has a handle designed to fit my hand, and has solid-brass catches and concealed hinges. Inside, there are painstakingly designed holders to keep its precious contents clean and protected. I probably have put 40 to 50 hours into its construction so far but Im not counting. As I acquire more gizmos to put inside, I add new partitions so they wont rattle around and ding the finish on one of my favorite possessions -- my prized graphite fly rod. Its one of the prettiest things Ive ever had in my hands, a deep chocolate color that looks black until you get it out in the sun.
Theres something wonderful about having my fly rod and reel safely tucked away in a chest custom-built just for that purpose. Even though I dont get it out much, I know its safe. Making the chest for it continues to be great fun, but doing so for such an impractical purpose somehow makes it even better. In fact, its surely more impractical even than you think. Ive never been fly-fishing in my life.
Chests, no matter how humble, always seem to have a story. My fly-rod chest speaks of my reverence for the rod and my other gizmos. My mothers hope chest, originally a humble apple crate housing the linens her mother painstakingly made her during the Great Depression, hints at a dedication to tradition, even if a traditional chest was out of reach. My mother later got a more traditional hope chest, but that apple crate served its purpose, treasuring her precious gifts for her future home.
In the summer of 1998, I proposed a book on chests as part of The Taunton Press furniture series. Fine Woodworking magazine ran a small ad to solicit contributions from readers. The mail started pouring in, sometimes 100 responses a week! In addition, I tapped friends, family, students, neighbors, and anyone who would listen for leads about interesting chests. In the process, we discovered that nearly everyone has a chest or two with an interesting story. If not, they know someone who does. Of contributions from woodworkers who saw the ad, there were enough beautiful and intriguing chests to fill at least another book by themselves.
Traveling around the country teaching seminars, I sought out chests at museums in different cities and followed leads wherever they led, meeting curators and in general feeling like Cinderella at the ball. I quickly discovered I could have written the whole book just on chests at the Smithsonian. It was overwhelming.
Not a day goes by, even now that the book is finished, when I dont get a new lead on some fabulous chest. No doubt everyone reading this knows of a piece that should be on these pages. The task, after finding the chests, was to narrow the field of inclusion -- a matter of making difficult choices.
Having chapters with chests used for different, rather broad purposes seemed the most logical way to organize the various chests, although we got enough blanket chest contributions to write an entire book on that category alone. Telling the stories of the chests -- how they were acquired, who owned them -- presented only part of what they had to say. How they were constructed, the materials they were made from, the purposes they served, how they survived for hundreds and sometimes thousands of years -- these details made for rich stories.
The three years Ive spent making this book have been a great adventure. The chests, in telling their stories, reveal stories of people, and its the people whove contributed along the way who have made this project so rewarding. My fly-rod chest holds not only my fishing rod itself but also my daydreams of fly-fishing in the High Sierra. The chests on these pages connect with people and often hold, in addition to precious items, reflections of dreams past, present, and future.
