This is a podcast I've been wanting to do for a while because I'm a huge fan of this guy's work, but Virgil Ortiz is this really brilliant artist from Cochiti Pueblo in New Mexico.

He's got this long history with Pueblo Pottery. His mother was esteemed pottery artist Seferina Ortiz so he was raised with it. But he pushed past those boundaries of just strictly traditional Pueblo pottery and now he's doing these amazing contemporary sculptures. You see, Virgil's got this entire component of his work that has to do with the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and an alternate history he created in the 500 years that follow.

When I was in Santa Fe during Indian Market and we recorded this podcast, he had a big exhibit at the Vladam Contemporary, another one at the Wheelwright Museum, As well as a third concurrent exhibition at the Autry, so he is a busy, busy man.

He's also a renaissance man. From sculpture, to furniture, to clothing, to pottery, to just seeing the world a little differently. If you don't know who Virgil Ortiz is, which is hard to imagine, but if you don't - this is a great podcast to get to understand the genius of his work.

I had this great podcast with Mira Nakashima and it was a really long one, so I broke it into two parts. This is the second part, and this was really where I walked through her facility in New Hope, PA and we go through these all these buildings.

The first building is called the "pole barn" which has all this amazing storage of wood, which is really the reason that Mira continued her family legacy of woodworking because she really wanted to see the life of this wood through its journey, and she felt a great obligation to do that. We also look at the place where they take the wood after its "planed," where they really start putting the puzzle pieces in place and where it start to comes together as a piece of furniture. Then Mira takes us to the finishing shed were really as she describes it "the magic happens."

Then after Mira was called away to her board meeting, I was able to talk to her assistant and designer Zane Shalchi and he was very kind and said, sure, I'll do a quick interview. It gave me a different perspective of what it's like to be a part of the legacy of George and Mira Nakashima.

Anyhow, I think this is a very important podcast historically. I love their work. I think this is one of those that will go down for me as one of my favorites. This is Mira Nakashima, part two on the Art Dealer Diaries Podcast.

Sometimes if you really want to do a great podcast, you just have to get on a plane and go somewhere. In this case, I went to New Hope, PA to talk to renowned second-generation woodworker, Mira Nakashima.

She is the daughter of George Nakashima, and they both are incredibly important figures in the world of furniture making. Many would say that George Nakashima is the father of modern furniture making. I mean, he's the guy that started it all in the late 40s, and they've been going non-stop ever since.

Mira has been at it herself full time since 1970 and the campus in Pennsylvania is an amazing place to go. If you go, make an appointment way in advance because it's already so busy and they would get overwhelmed if it was open to the public.

It was so amazing to go see the facility and hear this complex history of her father and his craft. You see, they were put into an internment camp in 1942 because of World War II, George being a trained architect and Mira being a newborn at that time. Hearing that story and how George meeting a woodworker while imprisoned changed his trajectory completely from the architectural world.

This episode is a more traditional podcast, in the sense that we both sit down together and have a really amazing conversation about her and her father's legacy in the arts. After our almost 2 hour conversation, Mira gives us a tour of the facility in Pennsylvania and that will be its own episode of the podcast.

In any case, this is definitely one of my favorite podcasts that i\I’ve ever done. It was well worth the trip to go out there, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. This is Mira Nakashima on Art Dealer Diaries Podcast episode 414.