Finally Finished!

May 16, 2006

Two shots to show it off.

This is IT! My dad is just going to poly urethane it for me. This was originally the "all done!" picture, but I had to fiddle with the seat some more.Note the giant mess on my dining room floor. It hasn't been vaccumed in three weeks. I am suffering. And here I am sitting in the chair, finally relaxing, just before delivery to the Westerly library.

The end of the Chairstory... for now.

May 30, 2006

I delivered the Chair to the Westerly Library on Thursday. Jimmi helped me deliver it.

I get to the library, illegally park (there is no parking lot for the library, and I am quite lost) and I go to the front reference desk:

"Hi, my name is Jenny Howland and I am here to deliver your rocking chair." I said pleasantly.

The woman gave me a look of utter and complete incomprehension.

"Do you know what I am talking about?" I said.

She looked me up and down slowly, trying to determine whether or not I was a library lunatic, and when I didn't say anything else but started to look a little worried she said, "I think so..."

"I thought you would know I was coming..."

"Wait here." She said.

The Westerly library is fairly big. She went into the office behind the reference desk, told them what I was there for, and then there was a flurry of activity while they called every room trying to find the boss-lady (executive director,) and I stood there wondering if I had wasted my time, as the chair was becoming more and more frustrating to me. And I was glad that Jimmi was out there with my illegally parked car.

They had no idea they were getting a rocking chair! And, indeed, they thought they were just "babysitting" the Senator's chair. But they were thrilled when they finally saw it. When my mom went into the library on Saturday during the art show to take pictures of it, they treated her like she was a star, she heard people whispering "that's the artist's mother..." and that made her feel kinda cool.

One of the librarian's stopped at my booth and told me that after the library closed they all stood around it and just had to take it in for a while because there was just so much to look at. I kind of like that image -- a bunch of librarians kinda soaking in my chair. It is going to stay at the library forever. After the summer, it is going to go in the children's room.

Another librarian came up to me at the art sale and said, "We know what you did. The public won't know, but we do..."

I just looked at her. She smiled. "All those books on the shelves on the chair, those are the ones we have to always fight to keep in the library; they are the ones people always want to ban. Any librarian will take one look at your chair and know right what you did. That's very good. We love that you did that."

So yeah, it started a little rough, but it is getting attention. And it's inside. So.