If you have watched the lives you might already know I have a weakness for chairs. I sit most of the day sometimes in my hooking chair, or my desk chair. Sometimes they are one and the same.
Over the years in the studio and in my house I have had many chairs. Most of them beautiful, some of them comfortable. You see I am a sucker for a good looking chair. Sometimes I am happy enough just to look at them.
Right now I have one big off white velvet chair that looks perfect to sit in. I see it as soon as I come in the door. It looks perfect nestled there by the fire.
But it isn't. Every time I sit in the chair I am reminded that it was a $399 department store special. It may look lovely but it needs a place where you only sit for a moment. That spot by the fire needs a chair to curl up in. One you can fall asleep in. See what happened here. As soon as I started thinking about chairs I convinced myself I need another.
I am not wasteful about my chairs. I give away the ones I no longer need or want to someone who does. Sometimes I have even put them by the side of the road. They are gone within minutes.
As I am likely to do, I recently began analyzing my relationship with chairs. Why am I attracted to them? I came up with all kinds of reasons.
First, I hook and I write so the chair is kind of the wings beneath my work in a sense. It stabilizes me and keeps me in that one place I need to be.
Secondly, when I was a child my mother always kept a really big comfortable chair in our kitchen. It had a big floral fitted slip cover on it. I loved that chair. That's where it all began. In fact, I remember sitting on my first boyfriend's knee in that chair.
Thirdly, I like things to be beautiful. I enjoy making my home look comfortable and beautiful. Chairs are an easy answer to this. They can be swapped out and change the look and feel of a space quite easily.
Fourthly, chairs are covered in fabric and I am a textile person. I love the look and feel of cloth. It soothes me.
Perhaps the third reason is reason enough. Beauty, and wanting to make the world around you more beautiful is ok. In fact it's worthy. Worthy of your love and your time. My lifeline of chairs have come from everywhere over the years. Second hand stores, the side of the road, auctions, department stores and sweet little boutiques have all once held the chairs that I have brought home. Once I am done with them they get re-homed. Most of my friends have gotten a chair from me at one time or another.
My friend Lily once gave me two of her chairs that I admired. I kept them for three years and then gave them back to her. She uses them still. So chairs have come to me in all kinds of ways.
And it is an old obsession. I just remembered when I was fourteen and my neighbours were closing up house they told me I could take anything I wanted. I took a homemade chair with wooden arms.
When you have room for a chair in a room you have room to take a minute and think about things, Given that I have written these letters to you for nearly five years and for years before that wrote them as blog posts, it is clear I like to think about things. Little things, like chairs and big things like the meaning of life. In this letter I even alluded to the meaning of chairs...goodness. It might be time to wish you well, and to thank you for reading. I am glad you are there, Deanne
