This chair is part of a set of four stylish oak chairs which I traded in for an old chest of drawers. The bland looking wood was sanded and stained, the drop-in seats needed re-upholstering. Continue reading Upcycling furniture: chair
When painting and selling upcycled furniture in western Canada, I was always looking for smaller items that would be easier to transport and display, and attractive for a smaller wallet. One of the ideas I came up with were these wooden boxes. A friend of mine, Ted Martin from Pitt Meadows in the Fraser Valley, made MDF boxes with lids for me which I then painted, using a masking technique. These colourful functional items proved quite popular.
MDF, acrylic paint, acrylic varnish. 2000
15x15x15.5 cm
I like this kind of garment because it’s so versatile. So I bought a bolt of sturdy unbleached linen fabric and asked a friend to sew tunics for me. I dyed them in different colours and decorated them with my own stamps, cut in Speedball Speedy Cut.
The tunics of this series are all shown on one of the mannequins I designed to display my fabric art.
Linen, Procion fabric dye, Setacolor fabric paint,
hand made stamps. 1999.
Length: 82 cm
Here is another example of custom made T-shirts from my design studio. I used figure-stamps and added drawings of accessories I remember from circus performances.
T-shirt Circus
Stamps carved on Speedball Speedy-Cut, cotton fabric,
Procion fabric dye, Setacolor fabric paint. 1997
Upcycling with paint: the design for this small table, well-proportioned but bland, was created by masking off successive parts of the beech wood table top and painting it in different colours. I wasn’t thinking of a particular motive, but I began to see an image which I best describe through a poem:Â
Deserted place,
trees stretching toward the horizon.
Dust on the sidewalk,
dappled with sunlight.
Curtains drawn to block out heat.
Branches yearning
for the cool of concrete.
This image reminds me of a still and brooding Sunday Afternoon, which I chose as the name for this table.
Sunday Afternoon
Beech wood, acrylic paint, varnish. 1999.
64 x 64 x 74 cm