— p. 4 — The Spirit of Nakashima Edgar Orlaineta Edgar Orlaineta received a bachelor degree in Fine Arts from the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado, la Esmeralda, INBA and a masters degree in Fine Arts at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y.
When I think about the current status of industrial design, particularly when thinking of furniture, I think back of George Nakashima and I do this because he is a great roll model. I believe that nowadays there are many things than can be retrieved from spirits like his. This is not exclusive of Design, but it is evident that the discipline lacks something that this master carpenter tried to transmit to us through his work and life. And yet his processes have little to do with what we nowadays understand as design or design processes; Nakashima rarely made a drawing or sketches or any of those things that nowadays designers do with great virtuosity before making their design furniture. More important than his craftsmanship and beautiful furniture, Nakashima is a model because his life and creative force can be seen as an ethical and moral ideal.
In Japan, a carpenter can only call himself a master after he has practiced the craft for at least ten years. This commitment, more than an ethical or training matter is an example of coherence. I say this out of personal experience; I am convinced that any designer, no matter what branch they work in, needs to be in contact with his materials and with their will and character, so as to define a design or a construction in an efficient and harmonious fashion.
Few know what Nakashima lived through before being acknowledged for his production of furniture. This wizard who called himself a mere carpenter also had a diploma from the Ecole Americain des Beaux Arts de Fontainbleau, a BA in architecture from the University of Washington and in the same discipline an MA from M.I.T.
Some years ago, I undertook a furniture design course at the Pratt Institute in New York with designer Mark Goetz. The course consisted in designing and producing a furniture work which had to be presented by the end of the semester. To my surprise, when the end of the semester came and the designs had been approved, all the students except me hired someone to produce their design for them. My own work did not meet the design requirements: it was neither functional nor was it the most inventive. I was betrayed by my subconscious and ended up making a sculpture, nevertheless, I think I learned something that my colleagues did not. The dollars they invested in commissioning their pieces I spent in two marvelous Japanese saw blades.
Nakashima succeeded in developing an important career as an architect in Japan, India and the United States. Nevertheless, in the very middle of it he decided to part from pencil architecture and devote himself to carpentry. He was convinced that any man who designed his own house also had to build it, and because he employed wood, carpentry was to be his technique.
I am convinced that many of the important decisions regarding a design, functional as well as formal, are defined during production. Matter has a language that requires to be in direct contact with, only then can its nature be revealed to us. It is hard for me to imagine that there is anyone with such a capacity for abstraction that they can determine through sketches and renders what
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— El señor y la señora Nakashima junto a su hija Mira, de Minidoka, Seattle, rentaron una pequeña casa de campo en New Hope, Pennsylvania. La familia es retratada frente a pilas de madera que George está secando para la casa. Fotógrafo: Van Tassel, Gretchen New Hope, Pennsylvania. 5/?/45 Colección de la Biblioteca Bancroft, UC Berkeley —
— Mr. and Mrs. Nakashima and their daughter, Mira, from Minidoka, Seattle, have rented a small house in the country at New Hope, Pennsylvania. The family is photographed against piles of lumber which George is drying out for the house. Photographer: Van Tassel, Gretchen New Hope, Pennsylvania. 5/?/45 UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library Collection —