Harries/Heder Public Art - Portrait Chairs

The Portrait Chairs Permanent Installation - 3 Sites

Location:	Norfolk, MA, Libraries in Olive B. Day School, Freeman Centennial School, 1997, and Norfolk Town Library, to be installed.
Client:	The Arts Council, Norfolk, MA
Size:	Approximately 5' x 5' x 4'
Materials:	Books, Steel, Wood
Budget:	$42,000 Funded by the NEA, LEF Foundation and local businesses.
Material donations:	Little Brown Publishing, Boston Public Library and others
Fabrication:	Assisted by Scott Tiede and Mike Guzikowski

Three chairs that were assembled from surplus books are installed in two school libraries and in the town library extension. The chairs serve as seats of honor, to memorialize the most avid readers with portraits taken in the chairs. Many students donated their favorite books for inclusion. The inscriptions, written in the donated books by the children, are silk-screened onto the base. The portraits will become part of a growing official portrait gallery creating an environment around each chair.

Detail

The Portrait Chair at the Elementary School consists of large scale children’s books that are sandwiched together, with visible titles.

Elementary School Chair

Middle School Chair

The Middle School Chair includes the classics and popular books, and has an interior light that projects through Plexiglas sheets sandwiched between the books. The interior sitting surface of the chair is cut to expose a variety of print surface.

The project was initiated by the Norfolk community and was realized through persistent advocacy by community members. The artist was approached with a limited budget to involve the students in a public art project in the Norfolk schools. The Arts Council obtained design development funds from the LEF Foundation and then applied to the NEA in two successive years for matching funding. This process took 3 years.

Proposal Drawing

Photos by Greg Heins

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