Living Art

Art dwells within my domicile.
Put into layman’s terms: I won a painted chair at a local art auction.
More specifically, I was the first and only bid, $20, in a silent auction of chairs decorated by local artists or wannabe artists conducted during July’s Shelby County Arts Fest, a celebration of all things arts and crafts.
I feel badly that I won.
My usual practice is to attend the Arts Fest, browse the art and craft booths, inspect the juried art show on the third floor of the Indiana Downs horse track, and gaze at the decorated benches, for this year they switched to chairs of all sorts, and write a bid in on a few sheets. I’m usually among the first the write in bids on the auction sheets attached to the chairs.
This year, the organizers switched to chairs to decorate instead of benches, and they were as cute, perhaps more so, than many of the benches. Each year, visitors can write in a bid, check back later, and maybe write in a higher bid. At 5 p.m. all the chairs are “sold” to the highest bidder.
I’m never around that late, so I never bid any higher, and since I’m there early, lots of other people have the opportunity to make these objets d’arte their own.
I had a chance to put the first bids on a couple of chairs, including the one sponsored by National City Bank and decorated by the Shelbyville High School art students of Angie Palmer. All the starting bids were $10 or $20, so I put down $20, and thought nothing else about it, sure I would be outbid as I have all the other years.
The chair is adorable. It started out as a wooden chair with a woven rattan seat. The students chose a garden motif. The chair was painted green on the seat, with subtle blades of grass growing up the legs. My favorites are those harbingers of good luck, the ladybugs, sprinkled unexpectedly on the legs. Green crepe paper fringes the seat and covers where a large cushion was added. Of painted canvas, with more green background, with flowers and curlicues growing, the seat has been pronounced “pretty soft” by my oldest son, Marshall. Small white flowers reach up on green pipe cleaner stalks from the crossbar holding the front legs together. The back is painted sky blue with wispy white clouds. And the students added a bright canvas sun with orange pipe cleaner rays to the top rung of the chair back.
This cheery chair now brightens the corner of our front hallway, where it can be seen when the front door is opened. It greets our visitors with a sunny disposition that I like to think reflects the mood of our house, most of the time.
Originally, I had threatened the kids that this would be the new time-out chair. But it’s too happy for that.Maybe it should be our happy-time-in chair instead. And I’m happy that I wasn’t outbid on this wonderful piece of art.
Thank you, Angie Palmer and students, for brightening a corner where I live with your art.