Spokane has had many famous residents over the years: Bing Crosby, Sydney Sweeney, Craig T. Nelson, Myles Kennedy, and the list goes on. However, there's one Spokane native who is often left off of these lists and deserves a moment in the sun.
George Nakashima was born in Spokane in May 1905, and though it's not known how long he called the Lilac City home, his life was forever molded by his experiences in the Pacific Northwest.
After attending the University of Washington and graduating with a degree in architecture and earning his master's degree in the same subject from MIT, Nakashima packed up and began work on Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Japan. After returning from architectural escapades in Japan and India in 1940, Nakashima began making furniture and teaching woodworking in Seattle, but after the attack on Pearl Harbor he was relocated to an internment camp like many others of Japanese ancestry at the time.
Through poetic prose and illustrations by Toshiki Nakamura, author Holly Thompson's picture book Listening to Trees explores Nakashima's relationship with nature and his experience as an internee at Camp Minidoka in Hunt, Idaho, during the World War II.
It begins by detailing Nakashima's love of trees (as documented in his book Soul of a Tree: A Woodworker's Reflections) and goes on to discuss Camp Minidoka, Nakashima's life after he was granted freedom and the current state of his studio in New Hope, Pennsylvania, which is maintained by his daughter, Mira, to this day.
After establishing his studio in New Hope in 1943, Nakashima became a force in the woodworking world. Best known for his sleek, modern designs with a hint of Japanese flair, Nakashima built homes and furniture for people like Nelson Rockefeller, designed furniture for Knoll and did it all while maintaining utmost respect for the trees that lent their wood to his designs.
Nakashima died in 1990, but his legacy lives on thanks to people like Thompson who have preserved his life in her book (and the tree that made the pages of the book possible).
