The Chair

prints of the original oil painting by Ken Dahl

The Chair

December 2024
There’s just something about a fire that makes us look. But why would anyone paint something like that? Be assured, no one was harmed in this personally historic scene from the mid 1970’s. It was an old, abandoned shack of a house in northern Minnesota that needed leveling.

It was a backwards time of dusty, dirt roads, wind-up alarm clocks, a fiddle, and an out-of-tune upright piano. This humble little home never had electricity or running water. The heat from an old wood stove kept out the cold, while trusty kerosene lanterns dimly lit late evening conversations. No fans blowing during the hot summer weeks, just the sound of a bee trapped behind a screen door trying to find a way back outside – mixed with that click-cluck, click-cluck sound of that wind-up clock reverberating through a solid oak dresser. Sheer, white see-through curtains danced gently into the room from a west window. A small dirt-shelved cellar beneath a trap door in the kitchen kept the canned foods and milk cool. Rain gutters made from boards nailed together in a V shape led to a barrel from which laundry water was collected. Speaking of amenities, there was an ancient wood cook stove that could deliver an entire thanksgiving meal for twenty people – with the right catering talent.

When the time had finally come to set the old folk’s homestead ablaze, it was decided that the chair was worth keeping. Hence the title of the painting.

Perhaps one could view this art as a metaphorical piece, about a bridge that needed burning, but the county was all out of burnable bridges. I’ve never been a big fan of burning bridges, but an aging, abandoned building that no longer serves a purpose other than housing yellow jackets in the summer and racoons in the winter?

Nevertheless, if you are ever in need of losing something unproductive or hurtful in your life, feel free to toss it into my painting, and let it burn, let it go. Plus, do you really want to live in a house with yellow jacket nests? I thought not.

Let it go, man. Let it go.

Original (24”X20”) in private collection