Flip Top

Artwork Description

These fifteen miniature containers (see 2000.41.1 to 2000.41.15) are part of a series of twenty-eight boxes that Stuart Golder created from 1970 to 1978, each one unique and no more than an inch in size. His technique involved bending the sheet metal, while other parts were formed, sawed, filed, shaped to fit, and soldered. He completed the surface finish by filing, sanding, and mirror polishing with an electric buffer, and he crafted the hinges and catches by hand. Many people asked him why he spent eight years on this project. He replied, "the preciousness of the form and the ability to hold a small universe in one’s hands always intrigued me." This rectangular silver box with rounded bottom corners and a mirror-polish finish is in the form of an old match safe. Match safes were developed in the middle of the nineteenth century, when the first wooden friction matches were invented.