chairbump: get a dopamine bump from spectacular chairs

Nothing to do with a baby bump, my renewed passion and interest in chairs has given birth to the my new baby  ‘ChairBump’.  It boils down to the delightful little dopamine hit you get when you see an absolutely jaw dropping chair. I’ll admit it. I’ve always been more than a little interested in the inanimate object called the CHAIR, and the mood-lifting effect they can have on people. Clearly, it stems from my visual learning style, but it’s also like viewing a beautiful piece of art, sculptured art, upholstered art. When it’s right, it’s so satisfying. I’ve always loved the phrase, ‘form follows function’, first coined by architect, Louis H. Sullivan in 1896. I heard it first in an interior design course I took during college.

Before college, I had never heard anyone talk about interior space as a serious subject matter. My own little high schooler room was my lab and I redid it every chance I got. A little later, when I heard college professors seriously discussing chair styles and construction–well, it blew my mind. It was my first experience of finding my ‘tribe’ of people who also had a penchant for design. But back to form follows function. The pragmatism of it appealed to my emerging love for purposeful, uncluttered, unfussy and interesting furnishings and, more specifically, furniture.

Even though I didn’t pursue a career in design right after college, it was always an underlying passion and I eventually circled back around to it. Chairs have been the center of my small business for over 30 years, and for that I owe them endless homage. There’s just no end to how much they play a part in all of our lives.

So, hold onto your hats, we’re going to examine, deconstruct, create, fix repair, compare, rescue, admire, learn about, and teach more than you ever knew there was to know about the simple, yet meaningful object called a CHAIR. To me, a chair transcends any space it occupies. It can have a life way beyond the limitation of form.