If you’re interested in a piece of furniture by Sam Maloof, be prepared to wait in line—a long line.

Sam Maloof in his workshop.

The master craftsman, who celebrated his 91st birthday this past January, is steadily working through his back orders and is currently fulfilling those from 2002. With enough demand to “keep me working until I’m 100,” this “Hemingway of hardwood” continues to make each piece individually, turning down offers for reproduction rights—such as $22 million for four designs—to maintain the tradition he began six decades ago.

“Integrity has been the single most important aspect of my work and of my creativity,” says Maloof, the first and only woodworker to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship (1985) and one of the few American craftspeople whose functional objects have ascended into the realm of fine art. “I never make a ‘conversation piece’ of furniture. Since I’m not subject to the manufacturing syndrome, I don’t have to change for the sake of change. I just keep on improving. Each piece is designed individually. It is a living thing.”

Six days a week for 10 hours each day, Maloof works like a sculptor, initially shaping each part freehand by shaving, sawing, rasping and chiseling away the excess wood. Rapidly and intuitively, he reveals graceful turns and twists, scoops and edges, which transform planks of hardwood into furniture that maintains an extraordinary balance between art and utility and renders surfaces so smooth they feel more like cashmere than hardwood. His assistants, three master woodworkers who have been with him for decades, do the sanding and finishing. The creation of one rocker (his most requested single piece of furniture over the past four decades), from raw air-dried wood planks to sleek varnished completion, takes nearly four weeks.

A Maloof chair can be experienced as a pure design composition: right angles become rounded and parts gracefully flow into one another, with clean ridges that rise out of smooth forms to emphasize contours. Or one can consider his seamless craftsmanship, the joinery so organic that in many cases different components are only visible through changes in the color and texture of the wood. “I have always had the conviction that joinery is an aesthetic part of a piece of furniture,” he says. “If a joint is well-made, why go to the trouble of covering it up? I have exposed all my joints since I started making furniture.”