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Chair Paintings – Part 2

The shapes of chairs create interesting negative space. Their legs and slatted backs let the landscape or background show through. They frame a view and enhance their surroundings. You can put things on their seats that aren’t people – flowerpots, pillows, and cats. And, in the right light, they cast dramatic shadows.

The first chair painting I did was all about this negative space. I stained the surface of a canvas the brown color of the chair and painted the white walls around the edges of the structure and its shadow.

“Chair and Shadow,” Carol Crump Bryner, oil on canvas, 1974

In 1983 I began to make my “set-ups” of chairs, rugs, plants, windows, etc. I moved them around inside or outside my house to take advantage of the light. Certain chairs made stronger statements than others, and I’ve used them over and over.

Here are some of the images I’ve painted since that first chair in 1974.

A Chair for the Museum Show

In 1985 I had a solo show at the Anchorage Museum. I did a series of paintings using the east window in my studio as a backdrop. I think this painting was the first “set-up” I made using a dining room chair, a plant, patterned rugs, and patterned cloth.

“East Window – May,” Carol Crump Bryner, oil on linen, 40″ x 32″ 1983

Sunshine and Flowers

Every fall I bring all my geraniums inside for the winter. I love to see them in the sunlit living room, as the weather outside gets colder.

“Char and Flowers – September,” Carol Crump Bryner, oil on canvas, 1992

The Kitchen Chair

Our kitchen chairs are straight-backed and sturdy. They’re a solid and reassuring presence and good creators of negative space.

“Chair and Canvas #2,” Carol Crump Bryner, oil on canvas, 40″ x 30″ 1993

“Dark Chair and Pink Geraniums,” Carol Crump Bryner, oil on canvas, 40″ x 32″ 1996

“Chair and Flowers in an Empty Room,” Carol Crump Bryner, oil on canvas, 40″ x 32″ 1998

The White Chair

When my grandma Crump went into a nursing home she let us grandchildren each choose something they liked from her house. I had always wanted this white chair and a little white table that had been in my father’s bedroom when he was growing up. My dad had it packed up and sent all the way to Alaska for me. It’s a hard chair to paint because of all the turnings on the legs, but I love it.

“Chair and Flowers – Spring,” Carol Crump Bryner, oil on canvas, 40″ x 32″ 1992

“White Chair with Pansies and Geraniums,” Carol Crump Bryner, oil on canvas, 34″ x 26″ 2005

“Pink Geranium in a Blue Bowl,” Carol Crump Bryner, oil on canvas, 38″ x 30″ 2005

Mara’s Orange Chair

In high school my daughter Mara painted her bedroom orange. And one summer her friend Meghan gave her this orange chair for her birthday. It had been in the coffee shop where Mara worked, and when the place closed down Meghan somehow fit the chair into her little car and brought it to the orange room.

“Mara’s Orange Room,” Carol Crump Bryner, oil on canvas, 38″ x 30″ 1998

The Wing Back Chair

For a while this was my studio chair. But now I keep it in the living room where I sit to read or knit. It’s been recovered twice – that’s how well used it is.

“Striped Chair with Two Geranimus,” Carol Crump Bryner, oil on canvas, 34″ x 26″ 2005

“Chair with Pink Geranium,” Carol Crump Bryner, gouache and colored pencil. 2010

Thanks for joining me on this chair adventure. Happy spring!

Me and my Great-Grampa Biggs sitting in the yard on a summer day, 1947

Twelve Treats of Christmas – Day One

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Heart-Shaped Ginger Cookies

A prized cookie cutter from our house on Whirlwind Hill is shaped like a heart. It comes from a set of four – heart, club, spade, and diamond. For many, many years I used these cutters to make ginger cookies at Christmas. Eventually I just used the heart. The shape was so pleasing, and when frosted with pink butter-cream icing, they reminded me of every picture I had ever seen of the iconic gingerbread man. I always used the gingerbread man recipe from the New York Times cookbook, and added a little almond extract to the frosting, just like my mother would have done.

“Heart Cookies,” Carol Crump Bryner, gouache and colored pencil, 2015

Wallpaper

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Thirty-three years ago, when we remodeled our Alaska house, I papered the bathroom walls with Laura Ashley wallpaper. I bought the rolls at the Laura Ashley store in San Francisco and carried them home on the plane in a huge green plastic bag. I’m both proud and embarrassed that I still look at this wallpaper on a regular basis – proud that it’s held up pretty well and I still like it, but also embarrassed because it hasn’t held up ALL that well, and it really should be replaced.

The Laura Ashley wallpaper I love, but really should replace.

My grandmother, Agnes Hall, definitely would have picked out and hung new paper by now. She enjoyed redecorating. Housework was not her forte, but she liked change, and moved furniture and repainted and repapered the rooms often.

Except for the whitewashed kitchen, all the downstairs rooms and some of the upstairs ones were busy with the patterns of wallpaper. I don’t know when the first sheet of paper was hung at the farm, but from 1912 to 1914, spring meant it was time to repaint and repaper the walls.

Friday, April 12, 1912 – “Pauline taking off the paper in front chambers. Getting ready for the paperhanger. Hard work scratching it off.” – Lydia Jane hall

Saturday, April 13, 1912 – “Pa scratching off paper in Ellen’s room.” – Lydia Jane Hall

And in the midst of this domestic activity my great-grandmother announced:

Sunday, April 14, 1912 – “The steamer Titanic went down. Many lives lost.” – Lydia Jane Hall

But the decorating at the Hall farm went on as usual.

Wednesday, April 17, 1912 – “Ellsworth painted the two chambers upstairs.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Friday, April 19, 1912 – “Mr. Goodspeed here papering.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Tuesday, May 7, 1912 – “Ellsworth painted the bathroom.” – Lydia Jane Hall

One of the upstairs chambers was the room my mother and father used after their marriage in 1943. The photo is in black and white, but I like to imagine the paper in soft pink and cream, so I added a little of my own color.

Janet Hall Crump and the bedroom wallpaper, 1943

The dining room was repapered at least three times between 1945 and 1968.

Aaron P. Hall, Ellsworth Hall, Ellen Hall Norton, Thanksgiving, around 1950

Thanksgiving, 1960, Charles Crump, Janet Crump, Ellsworth Hall

Dining room wallpaper in 1962

My grandfather, Ellsworth Hall, in addition to his duties as a farmer and a turkey carver, was also the family painter. It makes sense given his patient and methodical way of doing jobs. In another life he might have been an artist, painting pictures of rooms instead of the rooms themselves.

Wednesday, April 16, 1913 – “Ellsworth whitewashed the kitchen. Looks nice.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Monday, September 22, 1913 – “Ellsworth painted upstairs.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Tuesday, September 30, 1913 – “Mr. Goodspeed here papering the bedroom and preparing the other two rooms.” — Lydia Jane Hall

Here is the living room wallpaper in 1942.

Charlie Crump in the farmhouse living room, 1942

And here it is in 1949.

Living room in 1949 – Carol Crump, Great-grandpa Biggs, Tuck Norton, John Norton

I wonder how the wallpaper patterns were chosen. Did someone come to the house with a book of samples? Were they ordered from a store? However it was done, it must have been fun to have fresh walls every year or so.

Tuesday, June 9, 1914 – “A nice day. Two weeks ironing. All day work, with that the paperhanger called up. Coming tomorrow to paper the bathroom. The paper to be taken off which took until bedtime, and part of the next morning. Everything all stirred up.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Thursday, June 25, 1914 – “Ellsworth whitewashed the kitchen.” – Lydia Jane Hall

The parlor was always such a cozy room, and I love the paper on the walls in this photo of the Capable Cooks Club meeting in 1932. Later on it was replaced by a covering with wide stripes, which never seemed quite so pleasing.

Capable Cooks Club meeting, 1932 - Lydia Hall on far left, Janet Hall in center, Pauline Grace third from right

Capable Cooks Club meeting, 1932 – Lydia Hall to far left, Janet Hall in center, Pauline Grace third from right.

I wonder why paper instead of paint? Maybe it made the rooms seem warmer. Certainly it made them more colorful. Perhaps it was just the times. The downstairs bedroom, where my grandmother slept for as long as I knew her, was a lovely room with a door leading into the backyard and flowery paper on the walls. My brother told me that when the house burned in January 1971, my Grandma’s Hall’s bedroom remained intact- the wallpaper untouched by the flames. I have no photos of that bedroom, but here’s my grandmother standing near the door to her room around 1962. I wish the door had been left open so that I could have one last glimpse of the bedroom walls.

Grandma Hall standing in the living room near her bedroom door, around 1962

On Monday: A Few Old Books

The Little House on the Hill

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“The Little House,” Carol Crump Bryner, 2013

When the little house moved from the glen to the hill, it left its bottom behind. The 1912 foundation was made from the large and abundant stones that both plagued and blessed most Connecticut farmers. The unending supply of rocks made difficult the plowing and planting of the fields, but easy the building of the walls. My great-grandfather William recorded “picking stones” as a frequent activity in the fields. The little house’s rocky footprint is still visible and accessible.

Kirt Crump at the glen house foundation, 2013

Yards away from the foundation sit two boulder-like stones. They cover an old well and keep animals and people from plunging into its depths.

Well stones, 2013

Sometime between 1925 and 1943 my grandfather and his helpers lifted the little house off its stone base, transported it through the orchard, and positioned it on a new cellar at the top of the farm’s hill lot. Red painted, white trimmed, and dormered, the little house seemed a cousin to my own house – the one my father built in 1946 on Center Street in Wallingford, Connecticut. I couldn’t find a photo of the little house on the farm, but you can get an idea of how it looked from this picture of my own childhood home.

The Crumps’ house on East Center Street, 1947

The little house on the hill was a dollhouse compared to the big farmhouse. In winter we climbed the pathway from the farmhouse driveway to the top of the hill. We borrowed big pots from my grandmother, saved pieces of cardboard from Christmas presents, gloated over new “flying saucers,” and fought over the prime sledding transport – the “Radio Flyer.” We took turns going up and down all afternoon with the promise of popcorn and hot chocolate in the farmhouse kitchen afterwards. The hill was short, but mighty. We often poured water on it to freeze a faster ride. Now, in my dotage, I feel sorry for my aunt, uncle, and cousins who had to walk up and down that hill after a Sunday afternoon of sledding. Ice is better for sitting down than for standing up.

Sledding on the hill, 1950’s

In 1943 my mother’s older brother Francis married Glenna and brought her to live in the little red house on his parents’ farm. My cousin and his family live there still.

Francis and Glenna Hall, 1943

In summer we walked up the hill to the red house in sweaty pursuit of popsicles. Our Auntie Glenna led us down the cellar steps into the cool dirt-floored basement and opened the lid of the deep freeze to find the fruity popsicles nestled in their metal beds. Our mothers made their own popsicles – grape, strawberry, orange, and lime. But Auntie Glenna’s tasted best. Care was taken not to stick a tongue onto the frozen metal mold. It was so tempting. Maybe that hint of danger, and the descent into the dimly lit cellar made the treat more special – or maybe it was the warm and cheerful welcome we always got from our sweet Auntie Glenna.

“Grape Popsicle,” Carol Crump Bryner, 2013

On Monday: Corn

Welcome!

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On April 7, 2014, my first post on this blog about Whirlwind Hill will appear here. I hope you’ll join me on Mondays, Wednesdays, and the occasional Friday as I share my memories of our family farm in Wallingford, Connecticut.

On Whirlwind Hill

An artist's memories of a family farm – Carol Crump Bryner

Category Archives: Uncategorized

Chair Paintings – Part 2

Wallpaper

The Little House on the Hill

Welcome!