Chaise Lounge - Part 1
Deconstruction, reconstruction
This week I want to share a bit more about the chaise lounge that the quilt will be draped over.
For me the chaise carries with it immediate associations with reclining and relaxing. It’s domestic, it has associations with the home, warmth, comfort. A chaise invites you to stretch out rather than sit upright. It’s about stopping.
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I am interested in how posture affects us. In therapeutic settings particularly those shaped by Sigmund Freud the act of reclining allowed patients to lean away from the therapist, in a more passive position. That small shift in orientation created space for freer association, for thoughts to surface without the pressure of direct gaze. There’s something powerful in that physical softening, that then allows the mind to follow.
But this chaise isn’t neutral. It’s red. Which carries its own energy. We know red stimulates, it can increase alertness and physiological arousal. So, while the form of the chaise suggests relaxation, the colour gently contradicts that.
And then there’s the slate quilt. Slate is industrial architectural material. Cold. Unyielding, it belongs on roofs to protect. By articulating it into a “quilt,” I want to keep those associations with industrial housing and with protection and but adding in the language of comfort and care,
Bringing the domestic chaise together with an industrial slate quilt is really the heart of the piece. One object is about interior life, the other about exterior endurance. One suggests the body, the other structure. I am inspired by the tension that this opposition brings.
I’m interested in that in-between space. The place where softness and hardness coexist. Where something can feel familiar and slightly unsettling at the same time.