I Dreamed of a Chair...

Dream Chair, in progress....
Yep, my studio is messy and the floor is covered
in dog toys.

Earlier this week, in that twilight sleep that finally settles on you when you've woken and can't get back to a deep sleep, I dreamed of a chair covered in leaves...my leaves, painted leaves. Why a chair? A few years ago, Michael and I bought a beautiful rose-ornamented chair in an antique store. At the time (circa 2008), I had been on a refinishing kick and had planned to strip, stain, and hand seal it. But other projects intervened, diverting my attention from my original goal. When I started painting boxes in December of last year, like this one and this one, I saw the chair in the basement, and I began to consider how I might make it come alive.
A few weeks ago, I also discovered Spoonflower, which means I can also create my own fabric for the chair seat. Now between these revelations, my new personal direction, and several episodes of Craft in America, which we've been watching on Michael's work-issued iPad, my budding notions of what is possible with the decorative arts began to percolate. On a side note, I used to work at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, under which the Renwick Art Gallery operates. The Renwick focuses on craft, and I absorbed a great deal about furniture pieces, since I was in the press office and was lucky enough to study many of the exhibited pieces via slides (wow...I just realized....slides have become pretty much obsolete since then...and that was 2000, just 12 years ago).

Anyway, below (well, and above left), I've begun to 'block out' the areas on the chair to create the design about which I dreamed. It's deviated slightly from my mental vision. However, this morning, as my brain was working out the details, on some subconscious level apparently, my vision of it expanded to include a night sky, represented by the dark purple behind the leaves.

I'll be photographing this as it transforms. Plenty of work is ahead.

More of the Dream Chair in progress.
Here, I'm blocking out color and creating the
under-drawing.

Dream Chair...in progress.

Dream Chair....in progress.

Dream Chair...in progress.