George Nakashima was an interpreter of trees, listening to the voice of nature and translating wood and bark into timeless furniture.

That’s part of the allure of Nakashima (1905-1990), the iconic artisan whose sinuous, realistic studies attract a growing crop of admirers.

“One of the enduring qualities of his work is his ability to communicate his love of wood to other people,” says Robert Aibel, who sells Nakashima furniture at Moderne Gallery in Philadelphia. “He made furniture that people live with – the dining room table where you eat, the rocker where you nurse your baby.” Nakashima was the most prolific and best-known figure of the American Studio Furniture Movement (1940-1990), an artistic renaissance born in the City of Brotherly Love that promoted craft as an antidote to mass-produced modern furniture. Nakashima’s workshop in nearby New Hope, Pa., produced 25,000 pieces ranging from two-legged Conoid chairs to the massive Peace Table at the Cathedral of John the Divine in Manhattan. Matt Freeman, who grew up a few miles from the studio, was raised with Nakashima furniture his parents used and enjoyed every day. He remembers the list of pieces getting taller as he did, eventually including a dining room table and chairs, end tables, cabinets and shelves.

“My parents weren't overly protective about the furniture, but all the pieces are in pristine shape today, 40 years later,” he said. “Even as kids we had this quiet respect for the way they were made ... They’d just sort of sit there quietly glowing. We'd set down our soda glasses and sticky lollipops somewhere else, not on the Nakashima.”

Like children, each tree has its own personality. Nakashima was the first to embrace the knotholes, fissures and splits in wood as wondrous expressions of nature rather than imperfections. While most furniture makers discard the thin, irregular ends of slabs, Nakashima integrated them into his designs. Known as “free edges,” those elements are factors in determining the value of a piece. Basically, the more free edges, the greater the value.

When a country auctioneer sells an item for a surprisingly high price, he may turn to the clerk and say, “I wish we had a dozen more of those.”

Such is the wish of any auctioneer who sells a piece of art pottery created by the Overbeck sisters of Cambridge City, Ind. It is no surprise that Overbeck pottery commands such a high price, since so few important pieces come on the market.

Working from their modest home in east-central Indiana, this family of artists produced a relatively small, but highly regarded, amount of art pottery in the first quarter of the 20th century.

“Their production of quote-unquote important pieces is rather low in the scheme of things. Yet in spite of that, they have gained a very good name in Arts & Crafts circles. After all, it is really close to as pure an Arts & Crafts pottery as there is because basically it’s all made by hand,” said Don Treadway of Treadway Toomey Galleries. His company regularly sells Overbeck pottery at its auctions in Chicago and Cincinnati, but seldom more than several pieces per year.

From big-city auction houses to remote trading posts, collectors have been searching for textiles of the American Southwest for more than 100 years. Today these textiles, especially those woven by the Navajo, remain popular for their abstract design, stunning colors and superior workmanship. Originally intended as utilitarian items of clothing, these weavings are treasured as works of art as well as for their historical value.

The most highly collected and recognized form, the Navajo blanket, has shifted from an outer garment wrapped around the shoulders to a decoration on floors and walls. Hanging a traditional blanket vertically duplicates how it would have looked covering the doorway of a Navajo hogan.

Legend says Spider Woman, the powerful creative deity from the Underworld, taught the Navajo how to weave. Historians believe weaving in the Southwest originated with the ancestors of the Pueblo people. They were already using looms when Spanish explorers arrived. Colonization of New Mexico beginning in 1598 initiated trade between the Spanish and the Pueblo. Increasingly oppressive Spanish rule sparked a deadly revolt in 1680. When the Spanish reconquered the territory in 1692, many Pueblos took refuge in the Navajo lands.

The Pueblos taught Navajo women loom weaving, a technical art that takes years of practice to learn. Having acquired sheep from the Pueblo and Spanish, the Navajo have traditionally used wool for their textiles. Finely woven Navajo blankets were famous for their ability to shed water. While Pueblo weaving has always been for Indian use, the Navajo traded their textiles with other Indians and Anglos.

As indicated in the opening of this poem by a contemporary basket maker, bamboo – rapidly growing and quickly spreading – occupies an important position in Japanese artistic tradition. On the one hand, the delicate fronds of the natural plant appear as a recurring motif on scrolls, ceramics, and metalware. On the other, mature bamboo stalks can be used in various forms to make furniture, carts, and baskets.

A 1999 exhibition catalog quoted basket artist Minoura Chikuho (b. 1934) on the subject of the material: “Bamboo has a certain tenderness, a breathing quality. When you weave it and pattern it, light passes through it; it is transparent and solid at the same time.’

“It also retains the qualities it has in nature, flexibility and strength, with the ability to spring back into shape whenever you bend it. In winter the bamboo bends right down under the snow. When spring comes again and the snow melts, the bamboo leaps back up as if nothing has happened.”