I have been taking photos of the cats in our neighbourhood as there are so many characters. They are all so lovely! I am not ashamed to admit that I have cat lady tendencies.
I would love to look after cats all day everyday. Maybe one day…
I have been collecting photographs of discarded furniture for about 4 years now, and have spoken to most people about it. A lot of people have been interested and a few people have glazed over, it’s never going to be everyone’s cup of tea! As a result people have been sending me the discarded seating they see, which I am always hugely grateful and delighted to receive. Here is a slideshow of the many sights my friends and family have sent me:
Thank you to all who have successfully spotted and photograph these seats!
For the last week I have been living in a tent at Lanefoot Farm Campsite and it has been just what I needed. The weather has been changeable and challenging but somehow this made it feel more like an adventure. I saw so many animals, which made me extremely happy! The saying ‘The grass is always greener’ definitely applies to the Lake District, the grass is incredibly green and the views are outstanding! The first thing I found when I explored the campsite was discarded camping chairs and you can imagine how delighted I was. Here they are:
This pile of camping chairs looked like it marked the end of summer.
Here are some photos of the incredible views:
These are my favourite animals that I saw. The chicks were being taught how to catch and eat worms around our tent and they were super cute!
A few weeks ago (Monday of the week of the riots) I had the best adventure I have had in a long time! My friend Mara sent me a text to tell me that there was a sofa on top of a bus stop on Mansfield road, and I almost fell off my chair! I immediately grabbed my coat and camera, and left the house on the hunt for a sofa related spectacle. En route I saw this dining room delight:
I didn’t believe that it would still be there, and I didn’t know whereabouts on Mansfield Road it was located. I briskly walked towards town eyeing up every single bus stop, excited at what I might see. I was getting closer and closer to town and thought my luck was running out, when I saw a rectangle silhouette on top of a bus stop and I almost jumped with joy! I turned around to tell someone ‘Look, look it’s a sofa on a bus stop, this is very rare indeed.’ but no-one was there. Mansfield Road is reknowned for odd characters, and I was fitting in just fine.
Perfectly placed council poster! I agree that putting a sofa on a bus stop is ambitious.
I crossed the road excitedly to make sure I saw it from all angles.
I walked home with the biggest smile on my face and an exhausted battery on my camera.
I have a lot of chair love and nothing makes me happier than discovering other people who love them too! I was looking at the website 20×200 where you can buy Artists prints (as you do on a Sunday evening when you’re trying to hold on tightly to the weekend) when I happened across the work of Luke Strosnider. It is called Every Chair At the Visual Studies Workshop and it’s absolutely wonderful! I was sad that it had sold out but was so pleased to have seen it at all. This is the first chair of the collection:
Chair 001
You can view all of the chairs in the project on Flickr and they are truly fascinating. There are such great contrasts between each chair and even the ones that are seemingly the same, have very subtle differences that make them unique. I have not seen a piece of art that has made me this happy for a while and as someone that helplessly personifies chairs, it was a pleasure to see portraits of so many characters!
Last year I went to Summer Sundae and it was amazingly good fun! It was Gemma, Al and I (three go camping) and on the first morning when we woke up there was a commotion. People had broken into the festival overnight using a chair, which they had then abandoned and a crate. For a spotter of discarded furniture, who specialises in chairs, this was extremely exciting!! I got my paparazzi brain in gear and started snapping.
Uh oh, a chair and crate, but why?
Sentenced to removal by security
As I am getting myself ready to go to Summer Sundae again this year (Eeeek!), I thought I would share the photos. I suspect, as there are new rules about allocation of booze, that people might well be hatching plans to smuggle in more alcohol. If you hear a bump in the night, it might well be someone launching a box of wine over the fence!
I was having a conversation this week about the different types of time and how it becomes increasingly more difficult to make time for everything. I have been musing over the different types I think there are all week and categorised them as follows:
There is obligatory fun celebratory time, Weddings, Birthdays, leaving parties. There is fun time ‘just because’ which often happens without too much planning, like a trip to the pub on a Friday night. There are breaks away and adventures, camping, festivals, holidays. There are catch ups and chats, this usually involves drink or food as the centre point, pub, cafe or cups of tea on the sofa. There is inbetween time, usually on the way somewhere, to the shop, to work, on the train. Necessary time, work, life admin and sleeping. Relaxation time, watching TV, cooking, reading, sitting, going for a walk. There is also development time (couldn’t think of a better word for it!), learning, thinking, making art, trying something new. This list is not exhaustive and obviously everyone is different, but for me at this point in time these are the main ways I spend/organise my time. On Thursday evening I spent my favourite type of time, the fun type!
Me, Amy, Haydn and Al drove to a pub near the river Trent which was super lovely as one minute I was sat on the sofa watching one of the many terrible programmes I watch and the next thing I knew I was going for a drive. It was so good to get out into the countryside; there were beautiful reflections in the water and a very nice looking bird.
Whilst in Brixton, London I spotted this pile of sand and other household waste with a sofa on top. It was out of the corner of my eye, as there was a slither of a gap and I held my camera over the top of the fence to get a photo of the whole sofa (as I am too short to be able to see over the top!). I haven’t been anywhere for a long time where I have not seen some kind of abandoned delight.
My friend told me that it’s a house that regularly floods; it must be awful to have to start again every time! I would say it was one of the more uncomfortable looking sofa’s balancing on a pile for dear life which it’s cushions all eschew.
My blog has been trapped on a broken server for a week and a half, and now it’s back! I have missed it a lot, and until now I hadn’t appreciated how much I enjoy it! I have been sent and have seen many a discarded scene and it’s been extremely frustrating not to be able to share them. Here is a slideshow of the delights:
With huge thanks to Ali, Caroline, Phil, Nabila, Simon, Jane, Haydn and Kay.
I have been seeing huge amounts of discarded seating of late and I can’t always photograph them for practical reasons. Sometimes I’m en route to catch a train, other times (as a non-driver) it is tricky/sometimes dangerous to stop the car. Here is a slideshow of the ones I have been able to document in the last month or so:
I used to find it really disappointing sailing past an opportunity to snap a sofa but I have decided recently that I have to work out my options. I can either enjoy the view and not worry about it with the attitude of ‘what will be, will be’ or I can try to acknowledge them in a different way. I have chosen to write a description down as I see them, even if it’s really vague, just as a reminder. These are the ones that got away in the last four days:
Birmingham, Pershore Road
Front garden, floral two seater with huge amounts of rubble piled on it.
Front garden brown leather two seater, on side outside what looks like a student house.
Birmingham, unknown
Wooden frame of two seater, very unique looking on roadside.
Next to carpark, in grass, upturned red part of a sofa
End of drive, with building materials, a handful of wooden dining room table chairs
Nottingham, Gregory Boulevard
Blue sofa up against a house
Brown upturned in garden
Nottingham, unknown
White dining room chair, outside of door next to tins of paint