One of the things in my paintings that is often commented on and asked about is the Red Chair. Sometimes hanging in a tree, sometimes alone on a hilltop or in a field or sometimes on its side on winding path, it is one of those recurring images that I use as a symbol. It has come to represent ancestry and memory as well as acting for a symbolic stand-in (or sit-in) for humanity’s place in the landscape.
When asked about the time of its origins I always say that I think that it came about later, several years after I had been showing my work for a time. I can never give a truly accurate answer because it just seemed to come around at one point or another. It just started showing up.
But going through some early work this morning I came across this old ink and watercolor piece from mid-1994, at a point when I was still struggling to find voice. It’s an exercise, an experimental little thing that I would quickly do every so often back then to jog my mind and play with forms and colors. It’s kind of a goofy little thing, not something I am particularly proud of or excited by. I called it Hoedown.
But the thing that jumped out this morning was what has to be the first appearance of that Red Chair. It’s a little cock-eyed, crude and worn but it is a Red Chair. So now when I am asked I can say without hesitation that it first popped up before I ever began showing my work in galleries. It actually precedes the Red Tree now that I think of it. I guess I will now have to see if that makes an earlier appearance somewhere as well…
Redtree Times 