During every show I inevitably get a number of questions about the meaning of the Red Chair especially when it’s suspended in a tree. For anyone interested, I will pass along how the chair came to be aloft.
Growing up, we lived in the country in a large isolated house with an old barn across the road. One summer when I was 8 or 9, I came across a dead woodchuck laying next to the barn. As the summer progressed and he dried out, a vine passed through his body and by summer’s end was suspended a few feet in the air. To the eyes of a 8 year old this was something magical. I was struck by the power of the earth to reclaim its creatures. Everything seemed very ephemeral after that…
The idea of a tree growing through an object such as a chair, which is very representative of human existence, is a continuation of that early fascination. It wasn’t until I had painted several pieces with the hanging chair that I began to also see the symbolism of the empty chair, which in some cultures represents the recently deceased. That is what I see now– the family members who have passed on. Again, this is my interpretation of this work. I enjoy hearing what other people see in the work because many times it’s completely different from what I see but just as valid. I often look at some pieces in a whole new light after hearing a new view.
Redtree Times 