I’m going to keep up!

I have decided that I am going to do my best to keep up with my blog by posting the discarded seating I see, as soon as I see it. This is going to be a challenge but one I am excited by. I am yet to work out exactly what I’m going to do with the ‘backlog’ but I think it’s at least a start.

Woodville Road, Sherwood

Daybrook Street, Sherwood

This morning I did a drive buy snapping of the people of Natwest moving leather cream sofa out of the way. I love the fact that there’s such a story. Where will it be tomorrow?

A change in situation

I have just received this photo from Ali (Thank you!) and it looks like the cream sofa has had a change in situation. Whereas yesterday it was carried (then abandoned again) down the road in the sunshine, today it has been turned around and left to fend for itself in the hail and rain.

What is next for this sofa?

The adventures of the cream leather three seater

On the way home from work on Friday evening I squealed as I passed a spattering of cream sofa’s. I ran round the corner to get photographing and as I walked back past them, a couple were taking an armchair away.

‘Free removal to anyone’

Yesterday I received a text from my friend Ali to tell me about the sofa and an email from my friend Katie with a photo of the sofa, but in a new location. Thank you both! It had been moved outside Natwest and I just had to go to visit it! I wonder how it got there and why it had been abandoned for a second time.

Yellow marker is first location and blue is second.

 

Overwelmed and organised

Lately, I have been overwelmed by the sheer quantity (and quality!) of the furniture being spotted. I recieve emails/picture messages on (some good weeks) nearly a daily basis. I am always photographing furniture myself too, so the collection is growing and fast. I have been talking to a handsome web developer about creating a mapping system and we are in the process of building it. I’m trying to do some forward planning and have been logging the locations on a spreadsheet, but it’s a mamonth admin task. It is great to revisit the ones I haven’t looked at for years and reminisce, and I believe it will be worth it when it comes together.

 

One of the things I’d like to do is have an archive consisting of all the photos that have been taken to date, as a starting point. I shall start to look into the best way of doing this over the next week.

An army of armchairs!

My blog is something I really enjoy doing, so today is all about planning it back into my routine. I have been galavanting in Cumbria and frolicking by canalsides, so I canny complain! I have been receiving lots of discarded furniture photos from around the country, which I will be sharing in the next week. I got a tip off from my friend Ali about an army of armchairs, not far from where I live. I was in my element!

To see more art, that is the plan – Part I

I have been a bit rubbish at getting myself into gear to see as many exhibitions as I would have like in the last year. I pretty much always enjoy it when I do, it’s just making the time. It’s something that makes me happy, so I will do more of it. There is nothing like seeing a piece of art that you really relate to. There are obviously times where you see things that aren’t your cup of tea but I think that reminds you how great the things you like, really are. I have seen two exhibitions recently that I have thoroughly enjoyed. Here is the first:

Sarah Browne – How to Use Fool’s Gold, Ikon Gallery Birmingham

I haven’t written about art for a long time however I found the exhibition to be exciting and thought provoking. It was also extremely aesthetic and spoke a language me and my family understood. It spoke about people, industry and the obselete technology. I think my favourite piece was ‘Common Knowlege’, wild flowers pressed in different books that were written about ‘traditional feminine craft and an intellectual enquiry into amateurism, economics and mass cultural production’. For example ‘May 2010: Bluebells in Glenn Adamson’s Thinking Through Craft, 2009.’ I thought they were beautiful and I loved the relationship with what they were pressed in.

www.sarahbrowne.info

In the book ‘How to Use Fool’s Gold’ I spied the below piece of work called ‘The Gift’ which wasn’t in the exhibition but it is right up my street! The sofa’s were sourced by the artist and then re-upholstered using patterns created out of Irish potato bags and articles from the Irish constitution about the home. They were then given away, as gifts to various members of the Irish community (Including a man living in a council flat who had previously been homeless). They were asked in exchange, to document the sofa in their home. I wonder if the sofa became a talking point for their guests, and was treated as an art object and looked after with extra care. Is it now part of their furniture, a member of their family or prehaps living with a new owner? Could it be that it got tired and was discarded alongside it’s DFS equivalents?  The reappropriation of an object like the sofa is fascinating and these sofa’s have an extra couple of chapters to their story.

www.sarahbrowne.info

A table tale

Caroline sent me these photos of the demise of a small white table, day by day. It’s a tragic tale.

 

Tuesday at 7am

Wednesday at 7am

Thursday at 7am

Friday at 7am

Friday at 5pm it was no more.

When I see discarded furniture, I think of you

I met one of my Mum’s friends for the first time this weekend and she said that she loved my discarded furniture project and always thinks of me when she sees them. It’s amusing and lovely in equal measures to be thought about as someone sights what most people would consider waste or rubbish. She had been in the car many times with my Mum as she stopped to photograph a sofa.

We had a good conversation about how people’s furniture, especially sofa’s are intimate items. Whilst thinking about how I personify them, I started to imagine how much of their owners life they have witnessed. I thought of the neglected chair, that was bought for show and then turfed out when no longer fashionable or the worn out re-upholstered sofa that has given such comfort over the years. They all have such stories to tell and are such characters; an extension perhaps of the people who sit on them.

 

It’s part of the family

I have been taking photos of discarded furniture (specifically seating) for 5 years ish now and this has spread to my family. A week rarely goes by that my Mum or Dad don’t send me a photo of a piece of furniture they have spotted. Recieving these texts make me smile, as not only is there another one to see and add to the collection but they took the time to document it for me. It feels like a gift. I think about how they stopped the car, poised their phones and got home later as a result. It means a lot to me. Here they are:

Time to get organised!

My mission for this year is to categorise and get some order to my ever growing discarded furniture photo collection. It’s just a relief that I don’t collect the actual furniture itself, otherwise I would be surrounded! By the end of the year I want them to be mapped. This is going to be a lengthy administrative challenge, but I think the final result will be worth it. I need to stop looking at my feet and snap into action!

There are quite a few where I don’t know their specific location. I am going to have to think of a way to categorise these so they are still on the map. I am excited as I can imagine how it’s going to look and work. Better get to work!