April 12, 2010
I heart trashpicking! Scored a cane bottom and back seat a la Bauhaus kitchen chair, not my style, don’t really need it (at all) but perfectly good chair…just needs a seat. See a picture of my find on CANING page.
Also, here’s a cool little something I learned about Vincent Van Gogh:
Gauguin's Armchair. Arles, December 1888.
These two chairs were painted in 1888. Vincent’s Chair was, well…his own chair which he happened to be working on whilst ear incident occurred. The second belonged to the post-impressionist artist Paul Gauguin, who hosted Vincent at his “yellow house” in Arles, France for 9 weeks in 1888. “Van Gogh himself discussed these works in a number of his letters, but didn’t include any detailed interpretations of the underlying meaning of the paintings. In [a letter] written to the critic G.-Albert Aurier, Vincent described Gauguin’s chair as “somber reddish-brown wood, the seat of greenish straw, and in the absent one’s place a lighted torch and modern novels.” So there may be some (ahem) innuendo there which you can read more about on your own and interpret accordingly.                                                                                                                                     Â
Vincent's Chair with His Pipe 1888
Vincent’s chairs are natural rush.  I have worked on two different sets of authentic French cottage chairs circa 1888 The first set of 4 was actually binder cane and is what I refer to as the order from hell. The second set of 5 chairs I repaired you can see in the natural rush part of the portfolio.  3 important lessons I learned about the chair business from the first order:Â
1. I don’t stain cane.Â
2. I learned a cool diamond weave in the binder cane which I rocked the first try.Â
3. Take the check to the bank immediately, because if an order is going to make you want to cut your own ear off in frustration, you definitely want to get paid for it….Â
READ MORE about Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gaugain’s interesteing relationship and the two chair paintings at http://www.vggallery.com/painting/p_0498_0499.htm
p.s…yes, I still have both of my ears
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