Redtree Times

In Fond Memory— Part of Little Gems at the West End Gallery

When it is said that an object occupies a large space in the soul or even that it fills it entirely, we ought to understand by this simply that its image has altered the shade of a thousand perceptions or memories, and that in this sense it pervades them, although it does not itself come into view.

–Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will (1889)

I have talked a number of times about why I chose the Red Chair as a recurring icon in my work. It is a universal object, one that doesn’t need an explanation of what it is. It even carries with it its own meanings as a symbol. It can be a symbol of power– the seat of authority or throne.  It can represent having input or of being heard– having a seat at the table. It can represent a seat in the halls of justice– a seat on the jury or a seat on the witness stand. Or a seat of cross-examination, a seat where one gives information as they know, either willingly or through harsher coercion, to some figure of authority.

I could labor on with more examples and you might even have some that pop in your mind that I might miss. But the one symbol that stands out for the Red Chair is one of memory. For me I tend to mean all memory, but it also represents, more specifically, the memory of those who have died. That empty chair symbolizes the place they hold in our memories and our hearts. This symbolism of the chair in that way crosses many cultures around the world, an empty chair being placed at a dinner table for those recently past.

I saw this come into play as I attended a memorial service yesterday for a friend who recently passed away from brain cancer, a glioblastoma. She was a lovely person and it was obvious from the sizable crowd that she had touched many lives with her own that had ended much too soon.

She had been a teacher at a local school and when the fall semester rolled around, it was obvious to her that she would not be teaching or likely to ever return to it. She and her family started a project to make Red Chair ornaments, some in wood and some in origami, to give to her students to let them know how much they meant to her and to give them something by which they might remember her and the lessons of creativity and optimism she had passed on to them. Her family created a brochure explaining the severity of her illness and the meaning of the Red Chair as she saw it.

It was a lovely and touching gesture. They had a number of the Red Chairs there for those attending the service to take with them as reminder of her life. I have mine here in the studio now and will certainly have her memory in mind when I look at them.

For this Sunday Morning Music, here’s an all-time favorite of mine from Harry Nilsson. This is Don’t Forget Me.