The Lawn Chairs

If I am to be totally honest, I can’t remember how I decided to create a lawn chair in cloisonné enamel. My best guess is, I was working on tightening up my “checkered” motif in cloisonné and the lawn chair, as an object, popped into my head because of its joyful colors and weaving patterns.

I started by illustrating a couple lawn chairs to study the weaved lines, and then I jumped into making my first enameled pieces, my intention was to parle the duo into a pair of earrings.

Wanting to improve on those two, I made four more, for a total of six. I have no clue what happened next, but over the course of a week or two, I decided to go-hard-or-go-home, and forego the earrings to create a necklace. There is nothing that grabs attention more than statement pieces. I mean, have you seen the cigarette necklace?

So off I went, to make one more large enamel lawn chair, the centerpiece of the necklace, and it was a total success. I had to scrap the previous pieces and keep making more lawn chair compositions because I can’t ‘go-hard-or-go-home’ with half of the pieces looking sub-par. In total, 13 cloisonné lawn chairs were created, and seven where used for the final Lawn Chair Necklace.

During all of this enameling and fabrication, I had some time to reflect on the Lawn Chair and how incredibly perfect and retro it is. It takes me to a of time spent together prior to our reliance on electronic devices and social distancing needs. Times of communion with family and friends, sitting out in a yard, a beach or around a campfire, and just talking, enjoying the fresh air, and each other’s company. So it was truly a joy to take this deep-dive for the sake of one statement necklace.

Next, I had the desire to head back to the drawing board, and create some lawn chair illustrations. I am participating in a group art show, “The Drawing School” at Floyd Memorial Library from March 18-May 8, and I wanted to include a few new drawings. I didn’t want to simply render lawn chair drawings, I wanted to reimagine lawn chairs using some of the objects that have run a line through my work: pencils, cigarettes, and food. Using colored pencil for the first time since being a teenager, I reconnected with drawing, and I am pleased to continue discovering this application of color.

So sit back, and relax.