Soul of the Hardwood

By George Baramki Azar © Aramco World

"Ray Charles couldn't see my furniture, but he said he could feel that it had soul. When he asked about my rocker, his host told him 'That's a chair made by Sam Maloof.' Ray ran his hands over the wood shouting, 'I know this man ! I know this man !'

On his next visit, the first thing Ray Charles said was, 'I'd like to touch that furniture again that Sam Maloof made."

ENLARGE

When he begin working as a furniture maker in 1948, junked railroad plywood was the only material Sam Maloof could afford. Nearly 1,500 pieces later, the 79 year old son of Lebanese immigrants rasps and sands to international acclaim in his workshop 40 miles east of Los Angeles.

Maloof's crafting of black walnut, cypress, rosewood, ebony and teak has earned him an honored place among America's master furniture makers. His signature piece, the exquisite Maloof rocking chair, has redefined one of the classics of American furniture design.

A Maloof rocker was the first work by a living craftsman ever included in the White House collection of American furniture and has been exhibited at the Vatican Museum. Maloof's sculptured cradles, chests, bureaus and settees also grace the permanent collections of many of the worlds major museums, including, the Smithsonian Institution, the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Art Museum, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Woodworking pilgrims travel from around the world to meet Sam Maloof and tour his workshop. Ex President Jimmy Carter calls Sam 'My woodworking hero.' Yet, the most lasting impression of Maloof is that of a profoundly humble man.

Drop by Sam's house and you might meet a young couple like Madelynn Wheeler- Gibb and Tom Gibb, who with their young child traveled over a hundred miles to meet Sam. Although they arrived on his doorstep with neither an invitation nor appointment, Sam welcomed them and took the time to give them a personal tour of his home.

"A lot of woodworkers have signs that say 'by appointment only.' You see a lot of them. It makes it sound as though you're so important you can't be bothered, and I don't feel that way. I enjoy the human contact, its part of the work, only it isn't work, really."

On this day Sam Maloof is siting in his kitchen, running his fingers over the wood grain of a handmade table. Compact and fit, he looks 65 or so years old, although he will soon turn eighty. He has the cool ease of a jazz musician.

"So much furniture today is so awfully cold. It's meaningless really. I feel strongly that one of the most important things about a piece of furniture, is the soul the woodworker invested in it."

In 1985 Sam Maloof became the first and only designer to receive a Mac Arthur Foundation 'genius' Fellowship. When a freeway was routed over the home he built at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains and shares with his gracious wife Alfreda, the State of California declared the building a historic landmark. The California State Legislature has proclaimed him a "Living Treasure of California."

Sam was born in Chino, California in 1916, the seventh child of Nasif Slimen Maloof & Anise Nader Maloof, immigrants from the mountain village Douma, in Northern Lebanon. The Maloof family was among the first Arabic speakers to settle in California. As a boy Sam carved beautiful wooden toys with astonishing sophistication.

Slip into one of Maloof's graceful, long - tailed rocking chairs and feel the genius of his design and craftsmanship. Low to the ground, its hardwood seat is so marvelously scooped and sanded it feels soft. Run your fingers along the silken wood and feel the rocker's hard edges disappear into soft curves. Made through intuition and four decades of slow refinement, the cant and proportion of the polished ebony are perfectly sculpted to fit the human body. Beautifully balanced, the chair feels both light and massive as you roll it back and forth on its extraordinarily long rockers. Left untouched, it will roll back and forth, for four and a half minutes with a single push.

Such perfection commands its price: A Maloof rocker sells for about $12,000 dollars.

And how exactly, did he achieve this level of design perfection ?

"I didn't engineer it or anything, I just did it by feel and by the way the curve looked. I know there are formulas for how to do it and all, but a lot of times formulas don't work. It's a process of trial and error really, " he says. "Working towards perfection has to be a part of anything one does. You've got to put yourself into it."

See autobiographical, "Sam Maloof, Woodworker" (Kodansha International, 1988 )

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