“The Columbine”

I found you in the garden

Weeping tears of crimson red

I asked if your heart was breaking

But with the wind, my futile words fled

 

So I sat with you in the garden

My eyes tracing slender, verticle veins

Five delicate spires in regal red

A crown for your perennial reign

 

I left you in the garden

Undisturbed, for your fate is not mine

Because beauty is not always a labor of man

More often it’s of Mother Nature’s love, and time

*  *  *

I’ve often pondered how to artistically recraft this chair, but no ideas or visions ever came to mind. The cracks in the final layer of cream paint along the verticle grooves of the seatback always intrigued me, as if they held importance. Beyond revealing what is probably the original, decades-old coating of deep, red paint, those cracks said, “Hold off on recreating. Wait for a revelation.” I waited a year and a half. It wasn’t until the crimson columbine bloomed in my garden this spring that the inherent beauty of the chair blossomed in my head. The five, slender design grooves, hinting at the red majesty of the past, mirror the five, delicate, verticle petals of one of my favorite mid-spring flowers—the columbine.

Name: The Columbine

Artistic Restoration: None as yet

Manufacturer: Cleveland Welding

Product name: Restmaster

Period: 1938 until at least WWII. Uncertain when production ended.

 

 

 

 

A shout out to Don Storer at Midcenturymetalchairs.com for his ongoing research assistance.

Continue to follow The Metal Lawn Chair of the Month at AVintageChick.com

C R Kennedy