In 2025 I embarked on a series of sculptures that I called “The Chair Series”, also called the “Non Functional Furniture Series”. Taking discarded and run down chairs, then rehabilitating them and then going further to turn them into pieces of art.
The series has generated a great deal of conversation which I account for by the symbolism of what a chair represents:
A chair often symbolizes presence and belonging, and it can also stand for authority. An empty chair suggests absence, loss. Because chairs are shaped to support the body, they frequently represent rest, refuge, and stability, yet they can also imply constraint when someone is made to “sit down” or “take a seat.” In this way, a simple chair can hold the tension between comfort and control, welcome and exclusion.
In completing my abstract work it is also exciting when a viewer sees more than one theme in an object, and that is certainly true with my expressions in my chair series. Life is not always straight forward.
Jasmine Clouds
It’s always fascinating to me how ideas find their way to an artist. Since I don’t stick to a single style, I usually begin with a simple idea that pops into my head that I choose to follow. For instance, my first chair was a $5 purchase, a terribly weathered piece that was almost thrown away because of its condition. After letting it dry out for several years, I refinished it and painted it flat black. I then used the chair’s seat as my canvas, shaping random white forms that rise from the flat surface into the space above. I later added a smaller, tiny black chair peeking through the jasmine clouds below. A rebirth from the clouds of the larger form below.
Hostile Comfort
The second chair all began when I received a call from a fellow sculptor, knowing I was doing a chair series. They had discovered a chair that had been discarded and left for trash pickup in front of a neighbors house. I immediately jumped in my car to retrieve it. The chair was painted white, and I was inclined to strip it down and repaint it like i did my first piece. After spending hours taking off the white paint, a very rich grained wood appeared.
I finely finish all of my pieces to a new furniture quality with many times having a contrasting rough finish to add contrast. The broken spindle on the back of this chair has one of my signature balls attached. (Many of my sculptures have a sphere to break up the sweeping curves that appear in most of my work.) The ball and the legs are finished in a flat black, adding a nice contrast to the rest of the chair.
The added elements of a tilted seat brought on by the setting of the elongated legs creates a feeling of unease. I then added black wooden spikes to the seat bottom. The name of the piece, which was an easy chore: “Hostile Comfort”.
My Country
As with many artists, I have been impacted but the troubled political times we live in. My next chair was also in complete disrepair and was actually from a hospital, with the institutions tag still attached to under the seat bottom. This chair, as with the others, required hours of stripping and sanding before it was finely stained and finished. It actually was a very handsome chair after all these days of work. At that point, with much trepidation, I cut the chair into two separate parts. The parts were not evenly cut, but I allowed the blue side to be a tad larger.
The cut off ends of each side are painted blue on one side and red on the other. The obvious political implications are to represent the separation in our county at the time this chair was done. The used hinge on the back of the chair keeps the two sides connected, and acts to structurally give the chair stability. The viewer can make further interpretations on the meaning of this piece.
Tilted Circus
At this point, having completed three chairs, I found myself continuing to look for other chairs as a creative challenge. Down the block from my house, some neighbors were moving and put out two metal patio chairs that had their plastic straps rotted off and paint badly weathered. And so I went to work again to bring the discarded chair back to life.
This was a very tough challenge getting the paint stripped, and took much longer than I had expected. After it was stripped I disassembled the chair and remounted it on the circular base at a distinct angle. I then attached thin wooden pieces that appeared to give the chair a solid base, but is really intended for only a finished look, contrasting nicely with the black steel.
In a playful attempt to add some color, I attached random wood pieces painted different vibrant colors. That gave rise to the name of the piece.
Fractured Ideals
My next discarded chair was another wooden one, much in the same style as the “Hostile Comfort” chair. This too was painted white and took days to bring it back to life. At this point I was looking for an added dimension to explore, and I decided to suspend this in a horizontal presentation.
After spending a great deal of time on the design and engineering of the way it was to be suspended, I was very happy the chair is actually equally balanced on its spindle made of Red Oak and Bocote wood. The strength of these hardwoods gives the piece its structural integrity.
The chair seat was already broken off exposing the side spindle which I attached a carved arrow pointing to underneath the chairs seat. The finely finished three chair legs have spiraling stripes, much like a vintage barbers pole. The spiraling is meant to signify the chaotic things going on in our country. One does not have to look far to see how our norms have been shattered over the years we currently live in. And the fractured ideals that we now see.
In Conclusion
My series is not yet complete, but the first five were all constructed in 2025. As of this writing in March of 2026, I am taking a break to pursue other sculptural forms for a period of time. I expect to return to my inventory of broken and discarded chairs in the future.
It all starts with a reason to collaborate. Mine started with an actual need to further the impact of one of my sculptural pieces with a unique patina that exceeded my abilities. Color has always been a challenge for me. I discovered long ago that I was partially color blind, and that I saw colors a little less then the general population. That is what initially drove me to do sculpture, instead of painting.
The next part of the process was to design and build an interesting sculpture for her to apply her skills. I sometimes do not design on paper, what I am going to build. That was the case in this instance. I was going to build something that was free standing, and that had many curves, and was dynamic in its overall presentation. I like to have void area’s with things running though them. I selected New Zealand Pine for this project, the Pine is a softer wood and is much easier to shape then the much harder species I usually work with. I also knew the wood would be painted, and that any grain, or coloring of the wood, would not be an issue. And so I began.
The entire piece was painted with a white primer, and then I turned it over to Denise for her application. For this collaboration, I told Denise she had full creative license to do with the piece as she wished. As she started to work on the piece, she found a nautical feeling that led to an actual Octopus theme.
And in the end, the piece was remarkable. The collaboration gave birth to Octopus’s Garden.
“Machine Man” will be a part of a special exhibit at the Oceanside Museum of Art entitled Contemporary Interpretations, in June 2023.
Here are some other views of Dancer, in the process. The outer bark has been picked off, leaving remnants of the underpart still left on the wood.
