Nakashima Foundation for Peace - Hudson Valley Green Times 1987

George Nakashima, woodworker. That's what his stationary reads. But as a woodworker he has been designated a "Living National Treasure of Japan" and acclaimed in Smithsonian and National Geographic magazines. The American Craft Museum and Philadelphia Museum of Art both want to do exhibits of his work, and he is currently collaborating with the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a room for the new Japanese gallery. Like other great poets and painters, this artist has made a ripple in our culture that has touched many lives and now, in his eighties, he has created his magnum opus, a dream vision, an Altar of Peace.

In a recent interview he discussed his work:
"I have this project which I've started from this great log that I acquired. It's an extraordinary piece. It's about 5' in diameter at the small end and flares to 7'. It's unusual, something that nature has produced and might never produce again. It's unique. I acquired this. I wouldn't have had the heart to cut this tree myself. But as long as it was cut, I felt that I could give it a second life—bring the fruit of nature to the imagination, so that I could see what I could do with this log. My final realization was when I was in the hospital recuperating from an operation, and it came to me as a dream that it should be an Altar for Peace."

On New Year's Eve that dream was dedicated at the Cathedral St. John the Divine in New York City. Three years from the discovery of the 300 year-old Black Walnut, it was cut (a process filmed by National Geographic's cable TV series), and two boards were joined with butterfly rosewood inlays. The completed altar is 101/2 feet long and weighs 3/4 of a ton.

With the completion of this Altar, Nakashima continues to dream of two more matching altars to be offered as gifts to the Soviet Union and to Hiroshima, Japan.

Nakashima, who was given the name Sundarananda (One who delights in beauty) by the Indian sage, Sri Aurobindo, expresses the vision of beauty and peace he was trying to realize:
Peace should be born as a genuine expression of nature and an act of beauty. There can be at least one small object on earth to be dedicated to Peace in a tangible form instead of an abstract idea and an absence of war. It can be a positive creative force of its own, carrying its own momentum.

The altar is in the nave of St. John the Divine, Amsterdam Avenue and 112th Street, in New York City, which is open to the public daily.

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