the story of a chair

Once upon a time a girl worked at an Emporium of Scandinavian Flat-packed furniture with unpronounceable names and indigestible food shaped like small cannonballs. The girl's nemesis was the colour yellow which she wore everyday and kept her from using her ability to be creative.

One day the girl found a little white chair that had been abandoned in the ex-display graveyard. She felt sorry for the chair and as it was very cheap she bought the chair and brought it home. The chair lived happily amid other flat-pack constructed furniture in a tiny one bedroom cottage.

But then the girl, her husband, a tiny babe and a very lardy cat moved to a bigger home and the little chair was used to stand on to paint the walls. It was dripped with paint knocked over and eventually went to live in the green house with the tomato plants. The chair was very sad and lonely.

A few years later the family moved and with the family moved the chair. It was used for painting the walls and stripping wall paper. The chair lived in the garage and then in the garden shed. The chair was sad and alone. It was splashed with blue and purple paint, it's own white paint was cracked and peeling. It was forgotten.

One winter day the girl remembered the chair and dragged it out into the brittle winter sunshine. She scrubbed the chair with sandpaper and wiped it down and brought the chair into the house again. And the little chair was happy again.

A Chair, a Book, and some Paintings

chapel chair

A few weeks ago in our wanderings H and I went to Arkwright's Mill in Cromford, Derbyshire, for little lunch in the cafe and so H could have a wander around the exterior of the Mill. There is a small Charity shop for the mill, a tiny little room filled with books, bric-a-brac, a little thrifting was called for. Sitting forlorn and dusty in a corner behind some truly hideous pottery was this little chapel chair. It was love at first sight, and a bargain at £15. I have seen others for anywhere between £50 and £100 so it was definitely a keeper.

1950 copy of Alice in Wonderland

My Mother in Law helped me clean it with some wire wool and oil it down and it sits happily beside the fireplace. M isn't entirely convinced, but I think its fits perfectly into the house it just needs a little cushion on it to make it perfect. Along with the chair I bought a copy of Alice in Wonderland from 1950, its battered and torn in places, so it was the perfect to tear up and stain for my vintage book page paintings.

pages from the above book stained and painted

Which as you can see above is exactly what I did, painting some toadstools for a custom order. They turned out brilliantly especially the teal one, though for some reason I can never seem to photograph the book page paintings to do them any justice. I stained another dozen or so pages in the same tea staining sitting so might attempt to sketch out some doodles to paint on the pages. I really want to paint more toadstools though, no particular reason I just really like them, I definitely need to do some more teal ones, I love teal and mixing toadstools, teal, and tea stained book pages just seems to fit together so well.