1985

Pair of “Styx” Ladder-back Chairs

American, born 1944

In Jon Brooks's“Styx” ladder-back chairs the artist respects the ladder-back chair as a historical form, and is drawn to the particularly austere examples made by members of the Shaker religious community. These chairs are stripped down to the bare essentials of wood and construction, literally a bunch of sticks that form wobbly intersecting lines. The artist’s daily interaction with the forest has directly influenced his artwork: he walks on his land every morning for the purposes of foraging, trail making, wandering, and meditating. As he hikes, bent and undulating tree forms inform his imagination and, as Brooks puts it, “are loaded with suggestion. It’s the conception of each new piece.”