We're doing a lot of research for a timeline chronicling 70 years of achievements in the craft field that we'll be debuting in the August/September 2011 issue. Being a wood guy, I gladly dove into the woody details. Beyond the beautiful furniture of Sam Maloof, Wharton Esherick, and George Nakashima, it seems these artists did everything deliberately and with passion. It's really no surprise that these men, used to making things themselves, would spend their "free" time crafting their surroundings. After all, the urge to make, create, and build doesn't stop. Looking at these artists' homes, you get a glimpse into their lives beyond their work and perhaps even start to understand how their lives and homes intertwined with their work. If you're lucky enough to be Southern California or Eastern Pennsylvania, you can take a tour, poke around these truly artisan homes, and spend time where these artists dedicated themselves to lives of magnificent handmade work.

Sam Maloof's California home was built in 1948, in a lemon grove in Alta Loma, but it continued to be a work in progress throughout most of Maloof's life. He added onto the house and workshop as his family's needs expanded and he was able to afford materials, doing most of the work himself. When the state of California needed to build a highway through his lemon grove, his nationally registered historic home moved to a new location nearby. In addition to Maloof's handmade furniture, the house is filled with other artists' work, some famous and others unknown. Getting a glimpse inside Maloof's home shows you how he and his wife Alfreda lived their lives, captivated and creatively inspired by handmade items from all over the world.

Wharton Esherick's hilltop Pennsylvania home started as rectangular workshop. He laid the foundation for the original structure in 1926. Over the next forty years, he continued to build, refine, and expand, until he finally declared his home finished in 1966. His disdain for straight lines appears in the roof, walls, and brickwork. Today the home is preserved much the way Esherick left it, with 200 of his pieces on display.

George Nakashima started his career as an architect, but decided to change course after becoming disenchanted with the way designs were carried out, often using poor construction techniques and inferior materials. Influenced by simple and traditional architecture in both the United States and Japan, his home in rural Pennsylvania is a complex of buildings all designed and built by Nakashima and his friends. The first building, his home, was built much the same way Nakashima built his furniture - without a plan. He preferred to use the material as a kind of improvisation, with the house almost developing a voice of its own as it was constructed. Subsequent buildings on his property were designed and experimented with as Nakashima's own voice and tastes evolved, integrating modern materials with traditional forms.