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the basement of a boys' club. He even
secured a commission from a prominent
cosmetics executive.
When the war reached American shores,
Nakashima, his wife Marion and a young
Mira were sent to the Minidoka relocation
camp in Idaho. To that point, Nakashima
had worked mostly with machine tools,
but while incarcerated he apprenticed
himself to a Japanese carpenter, whom
he affectionately called "his teacher," and
refined his craft with Japanese joinery and
traditional techniques. A sponsorship by
Nakashima's former employer, Antonin
Raymond, secured early release for the
Nakashimas and they left for Raymond's
farm in New Hope. Until Nakashima was
able to purchase three acres of what
is now an 8.8 parcel with farm labor in
exchange for the land, the family lived
in primitive conditions, "in an old Army
tent," remembers Mira, while her father
"built the shop, then the house, and then
building after building." After the birth of
her brother, "he built more."
The 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 char-
acter 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 humanis-
tic. "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.
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