George Nakashima Woodwork
Right now we seem to be short of clothing inspiration, I’ve not really found anything that’s really inspired me as such over the past few days so it’s only natural for me to search elsewhere. Furniture is another design facet that I love to explore and George Nakashima has cropped up often, I’ve just never had the time to showcase it properly. So tonight I decided to bring over a set of beautiful photography from their website that really caught my attention and I found it really interesting to learn about the story of this great creative individual.
It was George Nakashima’s dream to provide “Altars of Peace” for each of the seven continents of earth. And they’re currently collecting donations for a fourth Sacred Peace Table that will be housed in Capetown, South Africa alongside one in New York, another in the Unity Pavilion Auroville in India and a table in the Russian Academy of Art in Moscow.
The studio’s approach is to create furniture that consists of the same process as what nature used in the creation of a tree. A firm design that’s based on principles as universal as possible and producing objects without “style” as such, using intense skill and craftsmanship. Although I can’t say I like every furniture piece that they produce I really respect their ethos and what they stand for and how they’ve stayed true to it for many years.
In this imagery below we see some pictures of the beautiful George Nakashima studio in which his daughter Mira took over in 1990, after George’s death. To this day she keeps the whole ship running and it’s really inspiring to see all the woodwork coming out of the workshop which is full of great craftsmen. This photography is sure to leave you wanting more, I’d recommend reading through the philosophy pages on the George Nakashima’s website if you’re interested in the story. I leave you to peruse at your own will and to take in a little quote I left below by the man himself.
Furniture is like architecture, only on a different scale. I’m happy working small – George Nakashima