BIGGER BIG CHAIR 

– David Ireland 

The Sculpture

About the Sculpture

The Sculpture Bigger Big Chair by David Ireland is located behind the Buchanan Towers on the green hillside. It is 12 feet tall and 6 feet wide. The sculpture looks like a giant chair with basic chair element and placed with two quarter circle on the side of the chair where your hands can be placed. The chair is surrounded by tall trees and a long alley right beside it. The chair can be perceived as many different form as the daylight changes. In the day, it gives us a feeling that the sculpture is powerful, full of energy, encouraged figure, like the judge from supreme court, king and queen; who have the cognitive power or public figure can be seated. At night, the powerful energy is lost. The chair gives us a delicate feeling and more like a feminine beauty of silent. The chair is likely to be a defender that is siting on a high chair who organizing all the organism on this particular forest.

About the Artist

David Ireland was born August 25 1930 in Bellingham Washington. He went to school at California College of Arts and Crafts in 1953 where he studied Industrial Arts and Printmaking. After college, Ireland went on to join the US Army services and traveling the world. After he returned, it was not until his early forties did Ireland start making art sculptures. He went back to school in 1972 in San Fransisco at the San Francisco Art Institute . After graduating he traveled a few times back and forth between New York and San Francisco , before he settled down in San Francisco to go full time as an artist. Ireland’s house in San Francisco, located at 500 Capp and became one of his most famous works. The old victorian styled house was purchased by Ireland in 1975 and was then turned into an installation in and of itself. Ireland looked at dimension with the installation in the house and “explored concepts of scale and vision” (Wikipedia- David Ireland).  Ireland died May 17 2009, just two years after the sculpture Bigger Big Chair was installed on the Western campus.

References:

Song: Adventures by A Himitsu

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ireland_(artist)

http://www.artpractical.com/column/500-capp-street-david-irelands-house/

https://wp.wwu.edu/wwuart109/2016/11/08/bigger-big-chair-david-ireland/

http://500cappstreet.org/david-ireland/

Cole Wall

Katie Lamb

Emily Liu