Last summer, a few friends were having themselves a little stroll down Power Street when they stumbled upon a broken chair, discarded on the sidewalk. A few footsteps further, they happened upon a tree stump. “It started as just a random idea. We figured someone got drunk and broke the chair,” says the anonymous mastermind behind the array of stump chairs now scattered throughout the East Side. “I hear people have started calling me Johny Chair Seed,” he says with a devilish smile. “I kind of like it.”
With the help of two friends (two of the “select few” who know his true identity), Johny has constructed a total of ten stump chairs including those on Hope, Rochambeau, Blackstone, Elmgrove and Larch, among others. He typically heads out on his bike to collect discarded chairs on Sunday nights, as Monday morning trash days mean the neighborhood sidewalks are ripe for the picking.
Predictably, construction takes place under the shield of darkness… well, usually. “Once I stopped to fix a broken chair during the day and some guy came out of his house and asked if I was the one making them,” Johny says. “I told him no, that I noticed it was broken and just stopped to fix it.” Whether building or fixing, though, the process of installation is the same: drill holes into the stump, use wood glue to affix the chair back, secure with screws. “They’re as sturdy as any chair,” he states.
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bjepson
StumpChair (https://www.facebook.com/StumpChair) even showed up at the RI Mini Maker Faire: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=351724791573231&set=a.325080597570984.76907.325072397571804&type=1
Tuesday, August 21, 2012 Report this