Listening to Trees: George Nakashima, Woodworker
Online Store Book Highlight by Emma Rosales, Friends of Minidoka Undergraduate Summer Intern
Listening to Trees: George Nakashima, Woodworker, by Holly Thompson and illustrated by Toshiki Nakamura, can be purchased from Friends of Minidoka’s online store.
Take a walk through the incredible journey of Minidoka camp survivor George Nakashima in this vivid and poetic picture book. It tells the story of a resilient second-generation (Nisei) woodworker who channeled his life’s work into timeless architectural pieces and continued an extraordinary legacy with Nakashima Woodworkers.
Each page reveals another chapter of Nakashima’s life, and how his path guided him to his life’s legacy. George’s daughter, Mira Nakashima, wrote an excerpt on the opening page expressing the type of honest and hardworking man her father was. Towards the end of the book, Thompson adds a full timeline of Nakashima’s life, starting from when he was born in 1905, to when he passed in 1990. She was also able to display some of the furniture by Nakashima, including his Conoid Chair and Odakyu Cabinet.
About George Nakashima: George was born in Spokane, Washington, where he spent much of his childhood in the woods among the mountaintops. It was noted that from the very beginning, George had an intense passion for nature and the trees he was grateful to pass through in his life. Initially, Nakashima studied Forestry at the University of Washington but ended up switching to architecture shortly after. After graduating with an MA at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, George became an architectural designer at Long Island State Park Commission. Between the years of 1933–1939, he spent his time across the globe in places such as Paris, Tokyo, and Pondicherry perfecting his craft. It was then that he met his wife Marion, a Japanese American teacher who was in Tokyo at the same time. However, during this period, war was emerging between China and Japan. Both George and his wife decided it was time to go back to the States. That said, by the time they had both returned, war between Japan and America began escalating. It was at this time that the United States government began sending those of Japanese ancestry to incarceration camps, where they would be held until the government determined their loyalty was no longer a “threat” to the country. In order for the Nakashima family to be released from the camp, they were required to move out east to find work. George knew a family in Pennsylvania who owned a farm, and he and his family worked there until he rented a house and began woodworking in his garage. From there, the Nakashimas began working together as a family to create and sell the furniture they crafted. After George passed in 1990, his children committed to preserving his legacy and unique pillars that make up the careful craft. They kept the George Nakashima Woodworkers studio alive, and to this day, you can purchase the custom-made furniture formed from rare or salvaged woods.
About the Author and Illustrator: Holly Thompson is the author behind the voice and poetry we see throughout the pages. She chose to tell the story through haibun, a literary technique that combines haiku and prose to vividly convey a message. Haibun is often used when describing a journey of some sort, so George’s life was very fitting for this poetic form. Thompson shares that the first time she learned about Nakashima’s story was through her father, who was another devout lover of woodworking. Toshiki Nakamura was the illustrator for the book as well. He was born and raised in Japan, and studied at the Academy of Art University: Art and Design School in San Francisco. He currently resides in Kanagawa, Japan.