To truly appreciate a Maria Yee piece, one must understand the person behind it. Her personal experiences shape everything from the furniture’s design concept to its creation. Maria’s passion, struggles and triumphs imbue each piece with a vitality and intensity that speak volumes without saying a word. A child of China’s Cultural Revolution, Maria witnessed first hand the havoc wreaked by the fanatic anti-intellectual radicals. At age 15, she was sent to work in a rock quarry and her parents were imprisoned. Inquisitive but quiet, she enjoyed riding her bicycle and swimming in the Pearl River. While her childhood dream was to be a physicist, her father, a professor of architecture, sparked her early interest in design. When the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, the radicals imprisoned her father and later sent him to a tea farm. Her mother, a school teacher, was placed under house arrest in the elementary school where she taught. She was later sent to work at a pig farm. Maria was taken from her family and forced to work in the rock quarry. Only 15 years old, the quiet girl’s creative spirit was cruelly snuffed out. In its place, only the spirit to survive remained.

The artistic merit of Maria Yee’s furniture goes beyond beautiful lines and elegant shapes. Every item is handcrafted with sophisticated joinery techniques, handed down through the ages and refined for a modern manufacturing environment, with no nails or screws marring the integrity of the raw materials. This makes every piece unique and personal. To create her solid bamboo furnishings, Maria Yee further developed her BreathingJoinery™ specifically for BambooTimbre™. By handcrafting the pieces in pure joinery without nails or screws, hazards such as warping, cracking, splitting, shrinking and rattling associated with traditional bamboo furniture are eliminated.

Keeping with her commitment to offering new, unique options in home furnishings, Maria Yee developed her Air Frame™ and BEST™ joinery techniques to create exceptionally strong solid bamboo pieces that boast a clean, contemporary look. Maria Yee pioneered EcoLuxury™ – luxury that is ecologically responsible. We abide by our core belief that if we take from the earth, we should give back to the earth. Maria Yee respects Earth’s natural resources and is sensitive to its dwindling reserves. Select products are handcrafted with 100 percent Forest Stewardship Council-certified hardwood, and other pieces use only hardwood species which are responsibly grown and selectively harvested. As an alternative to fast disapearing hardwood, Maria Yee developed rapidly renewable BambooTimbre™ and RidgeBamboo™.

The company is dedicated to protecting the earth by innovating green manufacturing processes and adheres to strict recycling principles. Furthermore, energy conservation is a top priority in both the production and design.

All photos courtesy of http://www.mariayee.com/. For more Information please click here.