Ripple Effect

Poiesis - "the activity in which a person brings something into being that did not exist before.”

I’m casting a pebble into the pond to start this new year, hoping the ripples will reach my friends across the globe. It’s hard to be overly optimistic these days so I’m going to focus on the small things, and let the ripples do the rest. Here’s a small offering of something amazing which I hope will resonate.

The Ripple Box is the incredible creation of Peter Canham, an Englishman living in Wales who produces fine woodwork conundrums under his “Magicbox” label. “I started making boxes when I was at university studying engineering and industrial design. … I’ve always been interested in mechanically explicit things, automata, bicycles, engines, early planes, gyroscopes etc. I love the feeling of interacting with a mechanical device as it transforms into a kinetic thing from a static one (a childhood spent dismantling everything in my parents house to see how they worked). I get a similar tingling feeling when I see others interacting with my creations.” Peter recounts seeing his first Japanese puzzle box in a museum in London, where he grew up, and was bitten by that bug so familiar to many of us. He has a creative mind and the technical acumen to bring his many ideas to life. “Most of the things I have made have some engineering element to them. I have always been interested in mechanically explicit objects, things that move and perform some function, things to interact with.”

"Dod yn ôl at fy nghoed"  (To return to my trees - to relax and unwind, to calm your mind) – Welsh proverb

Ripple Box is a compelling object, a cube with gorgeously carved ripples across each surface that behaves unlike anything you might expect. Peter describes the inspiration: “Most of my boxes come to me in dreams. I literally wake up in the morning with a plan and quickly head to the workshop or sketch it out in a sketchbook. The Ripple box is a collection of ideas that have developed with my other boxes they all sort of crashed together one morning during lockdown here in the UK, I‘d been out on a long walk the previous day and had been skimming stones in a pond.”

“I wanted to make a box that was like a sequential puzzle but was non linear i.e. one move did not necessarily lead to another but possible two or three. Like ripples in a pond interacting with each other. The biggest design challenge with the ripple box is that as the moves bifurcate the mechanisms start to interfere with each other, there’s only so much space on a box, but they have to come together again to arrive at a conclusion. The consequence of this complexity meant many iterations and mock ups, some of which made it into the final design some went on the shelf for another day.”

The striking appearance of the Ripple Box alone is enough to spark wonder of its secrets, and imagine it might contain all manner of movements. Indeed, it does not disappoint and is a thrill to experience, with little discoveries literally causing ripples that lead to other possibilities and options. There are a lot of unexpected surprises and parts that move sometimes, and sometimes don’t.  Everything is precise, however, and precisely thought out. You can be assured that a moving piece, which seems to serve no purpose, does indeed cause a ripple somewhere else, undetected. It’s actually hard to fathom how some of the movements interact so discreetly, and a testament to Peter’s skill. He has continued to add new ideas into this design and the current iteration requires approximately twenty distinct moves by my conservative estimate.

“Most of my boxes come to me in dreams.” – Peter Canham

The box is also incredibly special for another reason. It is crafted from rare bog oak from the Welsh countryside. Wales is a country steeped in legend and stories with “a strong tradition of craft, wood carving, weaving and stonework to name a few, and of course it’s a very proud land. The countryside is stunning and it’s hard not to get inspired by it.” From Peter’s website: “Bog-wood, also known as abonos and morta, is a material from trees that have been buried in peat bogs and preserved from decay by the acidic and anerobic bog conditions, sometimes for hundreds or even thousands of years. The wood is usually stained brown by tanins dissolved in the acidic water. Bog-wood represents the early stages in the fossilisation of wood.” The bog oak used to make the Ripple Box would have spent at least one hundred years in the bog before being excavated by Peter and dried for many years, and the original tree was at least three to four hundred years old when it went into the bog, according to his estimation. Peter has indeed worked a little magic in the box, which sends its ripples back and forth over almost five hundred years to tell this new story.

"Bûm gall unwaith - hynny oedd, llefain pan ym ganed" (I was wise once: when I was born I cried) - Welsh proverb

I’m toasting this incredibly fine creation with an incredibly delicious drink for the season. It’s a fine way to start a new year. The drink comes by way of Charleston, South Carolina where it can be found at the Dewberry Hotel’s rooftop bar, The Citrus Club, helmed by bar manager Ryan Casey. It’s an Old Fashioned, which speaks to old world charm and ancient things, like a five hundred year old wooden box. The drink is also named “First Time Caller”, which seemed somewhat apropos here. Even though Peter Canham has been crafting for a long time, this is his introduction here, and the first of many features I suspect.

“Benthyg dros amser byr yw popeth a geir yn y byd hwn” (Everything you have in this world is just borrowed for a short time) – Welsh proverb

The cocktail is based with aged Jamaican rum, and I’ve gone a bit further with mine by splitting that into two distinctly flavorful rums. Denizen Merchant is a unique blend of pot stilled Jamaican rum and Rhum Grand Arome from Martinique which has been aged for eight years in American oak bourbon barrels.  It was developed by Nick Pelis and Martin Cate (of tiki mecca Smuggler’s Cove fame) to best recreate the original rum used by Trader Vic Bergeron in the original Mai Tai. It is self-described as “intensely aromatic and unapologetically funky”. I also used a little of the super funky Smith and Cross rum, which clocks in at 114 proof and amps the “hogo” ante further. Hogo, Creole slang for the French term “haut gaut” (high taste) is the term used to describe the highly sought after decay-like flavor (believe it or not) found in distilled raw sugar cane. Jamaican rums, which are full of banana and pineapple notes, blossom incredibly well with the additional flavors of chocolate and banana found in this decadent drink. Do yourself a “flavor”, and try it. Here’s to the amazing new year ahead – cheers!

First Time Caller from The Citrus Club

2 ½ oz aged Jamaican rum

¼ oz crème de cacao

¼ oz banana liqueur

2 dashes Angostura bitters

Add all ingredients to an Old Fashioned glass with a large cube and stir. Express an orange peel over the drink and garnish with a ripple.

"Gorau prinder, prinder geiriau" (The best shortage is a shortage of words) – Welsh proverb I should learn

Discover Peter Canham inthemagicbox