The Giving Chair

This was a project that I did for my sculpture class last semester. 

The assignment was to make a sculpture out of a chair. 

I made tons of pencils out of my chair, here's the idea behind them.

I began by thinking about where my Salvation Army rescued, sad chair came from, which reminded me of the children's book, The Giving Tree written by Shel Silverstein. I considered the relationship between the tree & the boy, and the trees in my life, and in yours.

 A tree is something that is universally abused. The trees just want to give us shade, a good climb, and friendship, and what do we do? We rip off their leaves, break their limbs, and cut them down. Perhaps, to make a chair. 

A chair, is something that a community abuses. Like the tree, it loves you so, wants to support you, meanwhile your entire family sit on this chair, they knock it over, step on it, and eventually break it. The only thing to do is to throw it out and repurpose it.

Perhaps into a pencil.

A pencil, is something that an individual misuses. Pencils are the things that every person has had, or has and no one seems to care about. We throw them into ceilings, snap off their ends, chew on them, break them, and when we lose them, we don't even blink an eye.

And all they want to do is have us hold them.