Folding Chairs and Another Fiber Vessel of Ancestors

 (Above:  Four vintage, wooden folding chairs covered in fabric on which family photos have been transferred.  Click on any image to enlarge.)

I have several on going art series.  I can't help myself.  I will probably always collect and tag keys, wrap old rusted nails, zigzag stitch yarn into fiber vessels, make crayon grave rubbings, and add to my Anonymous Ancestors installation.  In addition to dragging home antique frames to fill with altered old photos, I find other things at my local audition house.  When these four old, wooden folding chairs went up for sale, I bid.  Amazingly, no one gave $12.50.  I got them for my $10 bid and knew exactly what I was going to do with them.  After all, the installation only had one arm chair and one rocker. 

(Above:  One of the folding chairs ... featuring black-and-white images from my Grandma Lenz's photo album on pictures of old clock faces.)

Now the installation has more seating.  This is important. The space is to reflect a nostalgic interior, someplace that looks comfortable and appropriate for a collection of family photos ... like a universal grandmother's sitting room.  Chairs are a really good and obvious way to transform a gallery into such a space ... but the chairs have to be special!

(Above:  One of the folding chairs ... featuring color images from my Grandma Lenz's photo album on pictures of old clock faces.)

These folding chairs do the trick (and they'll be easy to transport with everything else since they fold flat!)  I scanned my Grandma Lenz's photo album months and months ago but hadn't used the images.  It's a lot of work to take the scanned pages (which include several photos) and create individual files, color and contrast correct each one, and then create the unique fabric ... but it was worth it.

(Above:  One of the folding chairs ... featuring black-and-white images from my Grandma Lenz's photo album on pictures of old clock faces.)

The background for these photos were taken at another auction, one held well over three years ago.  It was a very special sale of clocks and watches, gears and other parts, and all the tools once used by a timepiece repair man. There were boxes and boxes of dials, clock cases, wrist bands, weights, springs, and more.  I bid on nothing but I took nearly one-hundred photos.  I had no idea whether I'd use any of them or not ... but they sure came in handy this past week.
 

(Above:  One of the folding chairs ... featuring black-and-white images from my Grandma Lenz's photo album on pictures of old clock faces.)

Each seat is quilted.  The old black vinyl upholstery was ripped off and the new fabric was easily stapled into place.  My husband Steve likes them so much that they are still open and sitting in our framing shop ... right where the first photo was taken.

 (Above:  Fiber vessel filled with wrapped-and-stitched wooden thread spools that include thumbnail family photos on both ends.)

After working with the original scans, I was then ready to use the images for a new batch of wooden spools.  I have hundreds and hundreds of these things ... but until last week, all the images were from my mother's parents.  I have scans from my Grandma Baker's photo album and images from all the slides my Grandpa Baker took.  Yet, there's more to my family than that!  I've always wanted to add my Dad's side ... plus my husband's family photos.

(Above:  Detail of the wrapped-and-stitched wooden thread spools.)

My in-laws died several years ago.  My husband Steve inherited what family photos they had.  He scanned them for me and I used some for the upholstery on the arm chair for Anonymous Ancestors.  But, I never used any on the wooden spools.  So now I have a collection from two families that certainly never knew one another.  To be honest, I don't know most of the people in my Grandma's album and Steve hasn't the faintest idea who most of the people are in his mother's photos.  It doesn't matter.  This is how a family is ... mixed up, half forgotten, estranged, and often so far part of the past that the coming generations will never know their stories.  I like that.  I like these spools.  I like making them and will probably always be making more!