Fruit Basket

The basket is made of slab, mitred at the corners so no edge shows and the veining turns the corner without a break; the floor is the same slab. Four mitred walls on a square floor make a box whose only decision is the line of the rim, and that line is cut after the box is made, in one pass from the two high corners down to the low one. Milk white is a soft white with faint warm veins, and honed it does not glare on a kitchen counter.

It stands on the counter or the dining table with its low corner to the room. Pears and figs sit against the back walls and roll a little toward the front, which is where the hand reaches. Stone keeps fruit cool, and a honed white box makes every colour in it look brighter. It can be wiped out, and it can be rinsed.

The detail is the mitre. Slab mitred at the corners leaves no end grain of stone anywhere, so the vein can turn from one face to the next and the rim, when it is cut, runs across the corner without a step. A butt-jointed box would show a band of stone at every corner, and the basket would read as assembled rather than cut.