Betel nut chewing is practiced from India to New Guinea and northward to the Philippines. Its origins are not known, but it is assumed that the practice began thousands of years ago. The ingredients for a chew consist of a betel (areca) nut, the leaf of a pepper vine, and a touch of lime. Chewing acts as a mild stimulant, somewhat similar to a cup of coffee.

While the basic form and use of this textile (lawo butu) are equivalent to those of 1990.205, its overall composition differs. Contrasting with the asymmetric placement of beadwork motifs in the other lawo butu, here the decoration is more rigid and balanced.

Born February 11, 1961 in Bryan, Texas, Russell Buchanan attended Texas A&M University earning a Bachelor of Environmental Design degree in 1983. He promptly began an architectural internship at Harwood K. Smith & Partners and then attended the Architectural Association in London from 1985 to 1986 in the History and Theory Programme. While in London, he began designing furniture.

This table is the prototype for one commissioned in 1993 by Deedie and Rusty Rose for their Dallas house.

American architect and designer Richard Meier is internationally renowned for his geometric architectural designs, including the Barcelona Museum of Contempoary Art, the Getty Center in Los Angeles, and the Ara Pacis Museum in Rome. Meier holds a B.A. in Architecture from Cornell University (1957) and briefly worked for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, and Marcel Breuer before starting his own practice in 1963.

In 1982, the American architect Richard Meier was commissioned by Knoll International to design a group of seat furniture and tables. This group included a lounge, side chair, two stools, and two tables.

Known for combining grand forms with reductive geometric shapes, Milan-based architect Aldo Rossi had offices in New York City, the Hague, and Tokyo, and directed a small staff in designing and constructing more than 100 buildings around the world.

The Panton chair is an S-shaped, molded plastic continuous form created by Danish designer Verner Panton in the 1960s. The world's first single-material and single-form chair, it is considered to be one of the masterpieces of Danish design.

Co-founder of the Dallas School of Creative Arts in 1933 and one of the founders of the Craft Guild of Dallas in 1948, Velma Dozier was dedicated in her pursuit of complicated metal techniques and their incorporation into unique and well-made metalwork and jewelry. Born in 1901 in Elm Mott, Texas, a small town north of Waco, Velma moved to Dallas with her family in 1919.

Cast and fabricated from 18-karat gold, the Rain Forest pin harmoniously combines Dozier's interest in the natural world with the artistic traditions of other cultures, inspired by her many travels. The asymmetrical form features technically difficult metalworking techniques, including delicate granulation on an undulating and curved body.