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e Pennsylvania property, which is
listed on the National Register of Historic
Places, nods to the Pacific Northwest,
bordered as it is by trees. "My father just
loved the tree," Mira says. "At one point
he said that he would not be able to make
furniture out of anything else but wood. It
was his inspiration, his muse. Sort of his
partner in creation," an honest material
for an essential craft. Nakashima traded
in timber with holes, cracks, and other
character markings; he left edges rough
and surfaces naturalistic. His way of
working with wood was in essence to work
within it, a communion that was radically
humanistic. "It wasn't just a business,
it wasn't just an occupation, it was a
vocation," says Mira. A spiritual practice.
More innovator than inventor, Nakashima
incorporated centuries-old elements in
his designs, like his trademark butterfly
joint, which he used to close a crack in the
wood, and the exposed joints of Japanese
architecture. Her father was right, Mira
says, when he assured her that what people
did not understand in the beginning,
they would come to pay extra for (quite
handsomely, as it happens).
In a highly commodified world driven
by distraction, the Nakashima name means
a great deal, representing a holistic way of
working and existing, prodigious discipline,
and purity of form. George Nakashima's
ideal-driven designs—from the Shaker-
inspired, three-legged Mira chair, named
for his daughter, to the Conoid chair, a
puzzlement on two legs with runners—are,
like wood, sustaining in an uncertain age.
Under Mira's architect-trained hand, and her
insistence that designers be able to draw by
hand, the George Nakashima Woodworkers
of today is not unlike like yesterday: dedicated
to making an honest, organic craft. "Once
you go all digital, you lose contact with the
reality of the material," Mira says. "Making
something by hand—it's a different feeling.
It's expressive. at's what makes it art." An
art, but foremost a craft.
nakashimawoodworkers.com
FOR GEORGE NAKASHIMA, HIS LIFE AND WORK
WERE ONE AND THE SAME, AND A SENSE OF
HOLISM THREADS THROUGH A CRAFT HE
CONSIDERED A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE. HIS NEW
HOPE, PENNSYLVANIA, FARM IS A TEMPLE TO HIS
WORK, FLUID IN ITS AESTHETIC. THE SITE IS STILL
HOME TO GEORGE NAKASHIMA WOODWORKERS.
