| |
|
The Team Dream: Hannah's Chairs 2007 ~
And the Results Are In!
What has become a gala annual fundraising event for
Hannah House, the auction of "Hannah's Chairs" took place
on Father's Day night, June 17, 2007. Held at the
classy Hanover Inn, the event began with delicious
food (catered by the Inn) during an hour-long auction preview of
this year's fabulous chairs. The auction action started at 7, presided
over by Chuck Eaton of Eaton Auction Service.
Where else
could somone have bought an unusual work of art at auction and
had that winning
bid converted directly into help and hope for a young mother and her
baby?
Hannah's Chairs are hand-painted Adirondack chairs done by local artists
whose reputations range from the prominent to the just-getting-established.
Works this year included the cleverly
whimsical and the stunningly lovely. And while there were some high prices
achieved, there were also several sleepers that went out the door
at real bargains for the highest bidders.
Rear view of Kit Farnsworth's winning chair, "The Tide." Designed
for 360-degree viewing, its artist painting was exquisitely detailed.
The runaway winner of the evening was Kit Farnsworth's "The Tide,"
featuring intricately painted seagulls on a sandy beach lapped by
frothy waves. After a flurry of brisk bidding, it was finally gaveled down
as the only chair of the evening to break into four figures. "The Tide" was painted for
360-degree display, from the seaweed paintings on its side struts to the shore
birds on the rear of the chairback. (Check out our slide show of this year's chairs to see several views
of this and other works.)
Other high sellers of the evening included "Falling Leaves" by Christine
Chek, in which the outlines of brown falling leaves of oak and
other tree species
were wood-burnt into the chair; Susan Johnson's "Lichen
and Verdigris," whose colors and forms played with
the subtleties of lichen and rust; and
Ellen Shaw's "The Main Scene," to which bidders were especially
attracted by the scene painted on the
rear of the chairback, a
weathered
main beach cottage surrounded by a colorful garden.
Close-up of the chairback on
"Falling Leaves," by Christina Chek.
Perhaps the most poignant moment of the evening came when Allan Jessman's
chair, entitled "Mikado," was auctioned in absentia. Jessman's studio was
one of the structures destroyed when Fairlee, Vermont, lost
its entire small, historic
business district to a multiple-alarm fire
in early May of this year. His work-in-progress
for this year's Hannah's Chairs event was also lost in the fire.
The artist sent a poster to the auction that was essentially an IOU for
a new chair to be done in a Japanese-inspired motif of chrysanthemums on a red
lacquered background. Sight unseen, the chair attracted several bids.
In addition to our lovely chairs, photographic artist Jonathan
Singer, famous for his magnum opus, "Botanica
Magnifica," which has been called the most important collection of
botanical images since the work of John James Audubon, had contributed two
large floral photographic compositions entitled "Dutch Still Life I"
and "Dutch Still Life II." In the artist's use of light, the two amazing
works were reminiscent of the paintings of
old Dutch Masters.
Preliminary figures indicate the auction grossed about $20,000 for Hannah House.
You can see pictures of all the fine chairs of the evening by
clicking on the thumbnail of each on the matrix featured below! It's well
worth the time spent for a virtual tour to see them all!
You can also enjoy larger pics and multiple views of these stunning Hannah's
Chairs
in a slide show format? (Just click on
the link!)
Cheers to Our Underwriters!
In any fundraising event, underwriters are the folks who help defray the
actual costs of running the event so that most or all of the money
raised can go directly to support the services
for which the event is being run. This year, the underwriting heroes
of Hannah's Chairs are Hypertherm (which also contributed several artist
chairs to this year's event), Ledyard National Bank, Peltzer Capital
Management, ad Citizens Bank. Thanks to these underwriters, the lion's
share of the
$20,000 grossed at the event itself will go directly to program services
at Hannah House.
|
|
