Strikes me that the subject...
Strikes me that the subject isn't whether Nakashima 'sucks' but about whether Stephen is getting the attention he feels he's entitled to. This is after all the same 'well known Sydney journalist' (read 'big in Japan') who proclaimed his journo's charabanc trip to Ikea as 'huge news'. Stephen's antics cause me to draw a comparison between him and and a close friend I have who is a writer for an British national daily newspaper paper - regularly visits front line Iraq, Afghanistan etc , has interviewed heads of states and the like and still maintains a refreshing degree of humility about it. I'm also sure he's never felt the need to ask visitors to a web forum what he should write about either. So what's the next 'look at me' thread you've got planned eh Stephen?
Luckily
Luckily there is an edit function on these posts now. Stephen, I'm sure if you look back to LRF's thread "maybe I just dont get it" or to the Metropolis Article, or to any resource on Nakashima you'll gain some insight beyond the first impression of hackery. Like many fine things in this world: art, design, literature, movies there will be many things that are difficult but truly great (Warhol, Mies, Kafka, Casablanca) and many that pretend to be great, but arent - generally too numerous to list, so I'll link to my favorite: MoBA.
http://www.museumofbadart.org
A friend of mine....
...who wants to stay a friend I guess, called me and asked with the first indications of loss of patience in his voice, why I was not answering a thread in which my name was mentioned in the first lines.
I must admit that this last detail is one of the few I do not like on the forum, but that was not the reason for keeping quite. In my world the title "George Nakashima sucks" does not really sounds like an invitation to discuss something on a public forum, so I did not even read the opening statement.
So, if you ask, I like George Nakashima?s work very much. But as my water blue chicken friend pointed out already, I do not see it as results of a design process but as the result of a talented craftsman?s efforts. Yes, some elements of his furniture hardly seem original or innovative but that is what you do if you try to guide the attention of the viewer or user toward the more important parts of the piece. You make the less important ones more ?traditional? more ?generic? A little bit like the cast aluminium base of an Eames chair. In Nakashima?s case the more important part is often the particularities of a piece of wood or timber as Heath would say.
It is the privilege and an important one it is, of the craftsman to understand the particularities of such a cut and to use them to their full advantage. Designers are mostly limited to materials and characteristics that can be repeated and they do not and can not pay attention to the found beauty of a split in the wood, or an unusual way of growing. Or a twist in the grain that triggers the imagination the way summer clouds do as long as you are resting in a warm meadow and just kicked off your shoes. In other words, the work of George Nakashima can not be judged by normal standards of design. On the other hand designers have a lot to learn from crafts people. Not only are crafts people, according to Walter Gropius, the laboratories for the development of models for the industry, but in spite of great effort designers have never been able to create the kind of emotional links that people recognize in craft production. To borrow the title of Jonathan Chapman?s book. Crafts people seem to have greater ability to generate ?emotionally durable design? than most designers. George Nakashima does this very well. There is never a doubt in his work that the piece of wood in front of you is a unique piece of a unique tree. His finishes are similarly well chosen. The less important parts never have the gloss and never show the grain in the same rich fashion the important surfaces are showing. Other than the sometimes un-usual shape of how the tree has grown, nothing attracts attention, nor by smartness or by easily crafted special effects.
So, if you ask me Stephen, George Nakashima is a great master in woodworking and his contribution to our material culture is timeless....thank you for asking!
http://www.nakashimawoodworker.com
hey wait!... nakashima does suck....
at producing technology based modernism or architecturaly inspired design. but wait that is not george's objective.
this forums members tend to favor that sort of stuff. seems like you guys only want furniture designed by architects or wannabe architects. which is totaly groovy, but within the borders of modernism there also exists modern studio artisan design. nakashima is a modernist in that tradition. his stuff is purely hand built and and is primarily about the expressing the spirit of the material employed. there is a good article in this months "metropollis" about george's work.
Trees
by Joyce Kilmer
I thi...
Trees
by Joyce Kilmer
I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks to God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
I am sure Nakashima had this poem memorized
Some images
from the Nakashima site. The sketches may have been by the man himself; they seem superior in proportion to the photographed examples, which are presumably current products. In particular, the Conoid Table with burl top has a much larger base than it wants, to my eye -- compare to the sketch.
.
The second pair is a Room Divider; again the sketch shows a broad and overhanging top, more in keeping with organic principles of design -- if there is such a thing, and if they apply to Nakashima.
Not that there is anything wrong with an orthodox "box." The "Conoid" base is unique, of course, if derived from constructivist work of an earlier time, perhaps.
The "Greenrock" side table was designed originally for the Nelson Rockefeller estate in Pocantico Hills, NY, according to the site. It's hard to believe this sort of work would fail to appeal to lovers of modernist design. . .
strike that Paulanna
Definitely Southern England. Bogner Regis?
I have a masters degree in English from Australia's only Ivy league university. I was once awarded a scholarship to Trinity College Dublin. I have been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for my second novel - Sandstone. And yet, i have never heard of the word: charabanc. I'm impressed Paulanna. And I'm REALLY impressed by your journo friend getting to interview heads of state and yet remaining humble.
You know where humble ever got anybody?
You gotta remember babe, I come from the arse end of the world. Our cultural cringe has been replaced with the cultural swagger, and I can swagger with the best of 'em. Come swagger with me paulanna. Let's swagger all through the night to a beautiful swaggery song.
Swagger is a poor substitute...
Swagger is a poor substitute for intellectual rigour as you'll find to your cost, probably when its too late. Pulling you're English degree out your arsenal(I have one too funnily enough) was a pretty lame defence the first time you used it in this thread, that you feel the need to use it a second time suggests real (palpable!) insecurity. It also only adds to my bewilderment that you should feel a compulsion to spout such inanities as 'Nakashima sucks' and expect to be indulged. You forget your audience Stephen. That you compound your idiocy by using national sterotypes (on an international forum!) as defence against criticism only convinces me further that you are nothing but a loud mouthed, attention seeking fool. You've got nothing to say and you're saying it too loud.
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