Sitting on the next great art show
March 15, 2011
By Laura Geggel
Artists, designers and architects let a chair be their muse
With a height of seven feet, wires poking out the back and a rusty seat, Larry Calkins’ chair is more a piece of art than a comfortable place to rest.
Issaquah artist Larry Calkins (above) worked on a gangly chair with Seattle architect Tyler Engle. The chair will be displayed at the downtown Seattle Nordstrom before it is auctioned. Contributed
“It’s almost animated, it’s gangly, it’s tall,” said Craig Cross, marketing manager for Seattle Design Center. “You almost expect the chair to walk off on its own.”
The Chair Project began when Cross started thinking of a way to unite designers and architects with artists. The Seattle Design Center partnered with the Pratt Fine Arts Center, roping in 10 artists and 10 designers or architects.
Working with the Seattle Design Center, Cross decided that the chair, an iconic piece of furniture, would be a ideal art form for the artist-designer teams to manipulate and decorate.
After the artists were paired with either a designer or an architect, they were given an Italian neoclassical chair donated by Baker, a Chicago-based furniture company.
Calkins, an Issaquah artist living on Tiger Mountain, joined Seattle architect Tyler Engle. Though the two had never met, Engle was familiar with Calkins’ work. As an architect, he had specified some of Calkins’ work, meaning he advised that his clients use Calkins’ art in their houses.
The two were complete opposites in some ways, but were on the same page for most of the project.
Larry Calkins worked on this gangly chair with Seattle architect Tyler Engle. Contributed
“He’s kind of loose and relaxed,” Engle said. “I’m an architect, so we draw everything and we’re uptight.”
Calkins, whose wife is an architect, said he was glad to work with an architect for the project. He wanted to deconstruct and reconstruct the chair structurally, not reupholster it in pretty fabric, like so many designers tend to do, he said.
“I didn’t like the way the chair looked, so we cut it apart,” Calkins said. “We wanted to have almost an animal-like quality to it and a more graceful and kind of a living look to it. We completely redesigned it.”
Engle and Calkins got the chair in the fall. It had a wooden frame, a woven seat and arms that did not go out at 90 degrees.
“The finish was really glossy, like a grand piano, so we left it out in the weather and just let it be because it lacked integrity,” Engle said. “It was like someone who wears too much makeup, and you couldn’t see who the person was inside.”
The chair sat in rain and snow. The two men took it apart and then, using metal rods like joints, put it back together, but left the joints showing, “almost like knuckle joints you would see on an animal,” Calkins said.
They planned to re-upholster the back with fabric, but once they strung up the back with wire, “I realized I liked the way they stuck out like that, almost like a horse mane,” Calkins said. “It gave it a wild look. We thought it looked better, kind of like it’s running.”
The chairs from the project initially went on display at the Seattle Design Center’s Northwest Design Awards Gala in February. Now, people can see them at the downtown Seattle Nordstrom and then about town before they are auctioned in August. Benefits go to the Pratt Fine Arts Center.
The Chair Project’s participants also have shows at Seattle Design Center, 5701 Sixth Ave. S., Seattle. Calkins, who teaches art and sculpture, not only at Pratt but also across the world, said the backdrop of Tiger Mountain motivated them to create an animal-like chair.
“Life on Tiger Mountain is inspiring,” he said. “We have a lot of wildlife where we live — bears, bobcat, deer, lots of birds — so it’s great.”
On the Web
See all of the chairs from The Chair Project at www.seattledesigncenter.com/thechairproject.
If you go
See the chairs at the downtown Seattle Nordstrom at the intersection of Pine Street and 5th Avenue until April 13.
Laura Geggel: 392-6434, ext. 241, or lgeggel@isspress.com. Comment at www.issaquahpress.com.
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[...] from the Issaquah Press that peers into the process Calkins and Engel took to create their chair: Sitting on the next great art show, by Laura Geggel This entry was posted in Gallery News and tagged Larry Calkins. Bookmark the [...]