Every day brings a new story. And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books.
Today is the story of May 24th
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It is the 144th day of the year, leaving 221 days remaining in 2022.
He told his stories in wood. Or rather, he told the wood's stories by painstakingly cutting and carving the boards into what nature wanted them to be.
Nakashima designed and cut pieces of wood into furniture -- tables and chairs, benches and cabinets, beds and desks -- but it was the wood that created the pieces; Nakashima said he only followed through on the destinies of the cut trees.
Originally educated as an architect, Nakashima toured the world, where he learned and embraced Japanese woodworking techniques. He first worked with scrap wood, developing a style that one writer said "celebrated nature's imperfections." He embraced knotholes, wormholes, and other perceived flaws.
His best work involved plank tables, which he would join with butterfly joints. The edges would be left free and unfinished. The result was what the wood was meant to be. He gives his philosophy on the website for his woodworking firm, built, like his studio, in New Hope, Penn.
Each board, each plank, can have only one ideal use. The woodworker, applying a thousand skills, must find that ideal use and then shape the wood to realize its true potential.
Nakashima died in 1990.
Among his legacies is the Nakashima Foundation for Peace, in the Minguren Museum, also in New Hope. It was started when he found an immense walnut log, and determined it was meant to become an altar for peace.
He created several such altars from the log, giving them to sanctuaries, including the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. Others are in Russia, India, and South Africa.
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