The Sparrow Chair- No. 2

Just getting started on my contribution to the Sparrow Club Chairity Event, slightly behind schedule. To Recap- Last year I painted an old public school rock of a chair to be auctioned off for the Sparrow Club- a non-profit that partners local schools with a Sparrow- a child with chronic/terminal disease. The students get "paid" for "volunteer" hours, with the money in turn going to the Sparrow's medical expenses. I am happy to participate again in such a wonderful Event- though I need to get down to business with this chair. The them of this chair is going to revolve around the compass on the seat- the pallete is a beautiful egg shell blue/sea foam green with a dark purpley black. Don't know if it will stay that way: check back for updates.

The Sparrow Chair Has a Home

I got a thank you today from the organizer of the Sparrow Club Chair-ity event... The final bid for my chair was $100 (a fine amount) and they raised over $2000 from the auction, very good. I don't know who it was that won my chair, but I surely hope they enjoy it as much as I enjoyed transforming it.

In other news, Lisa and I hang the show tomorrow night. My, my, my.

I am enjoying a breather from typing up artist statements and what not, Kelty is contorted on the couch in between Owl and me, and he is pulling up Bon Iver on YouTube with Dexter on his lap. Happy Family.

The Feel Good Post of the Week.

It's been a busy week for the artist. Hanging up work at Thump, exploring writing assignments for The Source, walking the dogs, and mingling with other artists and patrons at The Sparrow Club's Chair-ity Kickoff at Mountain Custom Framing. Brightly painted chairs circled the room, and different Redmond businesses chose which chairs they would host. Liberty Bank ended up taking my chair, with an opening bid of Fifty Dollars.

Lisa, my buddy and owner of Mountain Custom Framing, chatting it up (she is the one looking very beautifully preggers in the middle- that's one of her paintings on the wall.)

I got to chat with Jeff Leeland, the Executive Director of the Sparrow Club Organization. I told him how thrilled I was to participate in the auction, and how much I really admired the Sparrow Club. There is a tag line on the inside of one of the pamphlets- "Kids will do heroic things, when they have heroic things to do." I Love That Idea. No, not idea- Truth.

They titled my chair "black and white" for me, but I would like to call it "maybe sparrow," though that wouldn't make much sense to people who didn't see the sparrow pattern on the back, or the single one on the bottom of the seat.

There are several reasons I connect with this organization so much. I was lucky enough to get a lot of volunteer opportunities growing up and know the value of acts of service (acts of service is my primary love language if you know what that is). As someone living with Diabetes, I understand what it means to be a Kid with health issues, and while diabetes is nothing compared to Osteosarcoma or Paralysis or Leukemia, the affirmation and hope these sick kids are getting from the students who "adopt" them is just beautiful. And to top that off, the people running the show understand the value of art (check out the black and white photos of the Sparrows- they are great) which allows art to do heroic things as well.

I loved seeing what other artists did with their chairs. Unfortunately, I didn't plan well- I had my camera but no memory card. I also forgot to write down who created most of these- my apologies, artists! Each chair was so different, and so creative.

One of my faves, this chair replicated Munch's The Scream, and replaced the seat with a scale. So clever! Apparently it weighs light, an added bonus.

I didn't write down who painted this chair, but it reminded me of a stool I painted with a scene from my dad's farm. I thought he would like this one.

This is Lisa's Chair. It reminds me of Mardi Gras. Probably because the spokes look like strings of beads, and the colors (the camera phone doesn't do it justice) are so Vibrant. It's like Carnival. I love it.

This Peacock Inspired Chair was so lovely, Painted by Tracey I don't know Her Last Name.

Allright you All Powerful Adults. Consider this your call to action. If you live in Central Oregon, go bid on one of these functional pieces of art. If you don't live in the vicinity- please go visit the Sparrow Club website, and donate a gazillion dollars. Go on, Right now...

Maybe Sparrow

I'm sure that music is an influence on everyone out there- why else would the ipod revolution be so complete? Everyone has a soundtrack, we see our lives as music videos. Lyrics from songs have replaced both nursery rhymes and sonnets. It's not a coincidence that I was tuned into bird references when I was working on the back of the chair. Shearwater came on the shuffle quite a bit, as well as one of my favorite Neko Case songs (I think the artwork in this video is amazing by the way...) I wonder what my artwork would look like if I listened only to Polka? (Lots of dots perhaps. hardy har har)

In other news, it is still snowing. Owl and I are on our twentieth day straight of Bikram Yoga. I still haven't made any oatmeal cookies. I just finished a really good book called The Hummingbird's Daughter. We took kelty to the dog park today to play in the snow. Did I mention it is still snowing?

It's for Chair-ity, hardy har har.

Today in the studio, I will be working on a very specific project. A chair. A local organization called The Sparrow Club will be auctioning off several chairs that have been painted by local artists, as a fund raiser for their organization. My friend Lisa, owner of Mountain Custom Framing in Redmond, got me involved with the auction. The Sparrow Club is fabulous. They work with local schools to organize volunteer work and fundraising to benefit a chronically ill or disabled child that each class "adopts." Many times the child, or Sparrow, is someone associated with the students, so they get to see first hand what their efforts can do.

The chair I will be painting is an ugly oak, public school toss out. This chair has seen it's share, I'm sure. I hope I can be a fairy godmother for this sad chair, and make it elegant and beautiful. I plan on covering it with black and white, in patterns that I have visited in some of my collages. How to make it elegant, but whimsical? And how to make it reflect the heart of The Sparrow Club? The water pattern from Sea Change meets the clouds from Your Luck, perhaps, with the sparrows from Untitled flying about. It will be a challenge to seam these organic, flowing patterns together on something as awkwardly shaped as this chair however. Bippity Boppity Boo.