When a Vero children’s charity put out a call to artists to turn thrift-shop chairs into works of art to auction, so many artists volunteered that organizers had to start a waiting list.
Playful, fun, unique – all these terms have been used to describe Chairish the Children, an innovative fundraiser that challenged a select group of artists to create and donate one-of-a-kind art chairs for the benefit of Hibiscus Children’s Center. Both functional furniture pieces as well as flights of fancy will be open for bids at a silent auction later this month.
Many of the artists were inspired to use child-sized chairs as their “canvases.”
Artist Barbara Sharp of Main Street Vero Beach Studios used a child-sized garden bench that had seen better days for one of her two offerings. The cast iron ends and openwork panel on the bench’s back rest were rusty, and the wooden slats of its seat were loose. A thorough sanding, new screws and bright new paint made the bench ready for a colorful theme of insects, flowers and a friendly gnome.
Shotsi LaJoie found the basis of her artwork, an antique grammar school desk, at a consignment gallery.
“When they found out what I was buying it for, they just gave it to me,” she says with a smile.
Mimmo Amelio, the artist-restaurateur at Scampi Grill, created three matching children’s chairs, painted in his signature splatter motif, as well as an adult–sized chair.
Carol Bennett submitted two child-sized pieces. She painted scores of little fish on one of them in her well-loved, spontaneous style.
A very grown-up piece of art came from painter Tim Sanchez, who made an assemblage of two folded director’s chairs that he lashed, using black and white plastic zip ties, to an abstract expressionist canvas.
That one, of course, is not meant to be sat upon, but hung on the wall.
Sanchez notes that he has used director’s chairs in his work before. He says he wanted to “do something fun” for the auction, so he chose a vibrant palette of red, blue, violet and yellow.
“Color is such a seductive art element,” he notes.
Unlike the dark-hued chair assemblage he created prior to this one, the current piece has a sculptural quality and vivid brushwork that Sanchez hopes will appeal to bidders.
Sanchez believes Vero’s growing cadre of sophisticated art patrons is ready for art that does more than decorate the foyer.
“I think there’s a lot of daring people in town now. It is no longer ‘Just give me flowers.’ They are an educated group, a younger group that has been exposed to art and art history. It’s nice to see it happening here.”
Alicia Quinn agrees that Chairish the Children offers a different take on art’s possibilities, not only for the art-buying public, but also or the participating artists.
“They have experimented and done something outside the box and one of a kind,” she says.
The artists are a veritable “who’s who” of Vero’s art scene. Beachside residents Gus and Jan Miller are offering a collaborative work, “Fish Back Chair,” which has as its starting point a vintage seat from their personal collection. LaJoie created “Days Gone By” by covering the consignment shop desk and chair with childlike drawings and graffiti. She even made “gum wads” of clay that she glued under the desk’s top and seat.
Joan Earnhart’s “Just Another Pool Chair” is a mischievously original piece with a back constructed of pool cues, feet made of cue balls, and even a pocket.
Palm House Gallery, fresh from its “Heart to Art” exhibition for Quail Valley Charities, has seven artists participating in Chairish the Children, including Stevee Greeff, Rick Kelly, Kathy “Kiki” Kemp, Liz Mayo, Suzy Mellott and Lee Moore. For her part the gallery’s owner, Emily Tremml, is disguising an Adirondack chair with a fishtail-shaped footrest as a brown trout.
Painter Mary Ellen Koser coordinated a group of her fellow Vero Beach Art Club members to paint a wooden garden bench currently on display in a courtyard at The Village Shops off A1A. Another group project saw an art class of teenagers from the Hibiscus Children’s Center Village decorate a bench. The word “LOVE” appears on the bench’s back; its seat is collaged with pennies and nickels.
Hibiscus Center volunteers Julie Otto and Sue Sharpe are the event co-chairs. Otto got the idea from similar fundraisers in Indianapolis, St. Louis and New Orleans. Because those events raised funds for children’s museums and children’s social services, Otto felt Hibiscus Center, with its focus on sheltering abused, abandoned and neglected children, could use a Chairish the Children event of its own.
As the center’s first themed-art fundraiser, it was with some trepidation that Otto approached the institution’s fundraising arm with her proposal. To her relief, the response was enthusiastic.
“Sue Sharpe was the first one who voted yes, because I shared the idea with her first,” says Otto. “And she just was over the moon excited about it. I thought, if Sue’s excited about it, then it has to be a good thing.”
Sharpe and Otto met with Alicia Quinn, familiar with many artists through her long volunteerism with the Vero Beach Art Club. She supplied Otto and Sharpe with contact information of artists she thought might participate.
“If we hadn’t had the support of the art community, we would have been nowhere,” says Sharpe.
Sharpe and Otto were stunned at the artists’ response. Even after they expanded the initial number of participants from 40 to 45, the artists kept on stepping up. There is now a list of alternates.
Last June the artists met at Tiger Lily Art Studios and Gallery downtown, where Sharpe and Otto explained what was expected of them. The artists would donate not only their time and talent, but also their own materials. They weren’t expected to buy new chairs, but to find them at yard sales, thrift stores and consignment shops.
“One thing that I’ve heard from every artist is ‘This is so much fun,’” says Otto. “They love the creative part of it, the artistic part of it, they are just so joyful in giving to us. That speaks to the art community here.”
The Chairish the Children fundraiser will take place Feb. 19 from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at the Vero Beach Country Club. Proceeds from the $100 tickets go to Hibiscus Children’s Center.
