GEORDI DUCKLER recreated this salvaged chair for the Community Warehouse Chair Affair. He calls it "A Small Seat in a Poet’s Gallery."

 

Community Warehouse to benefit from April 23 Chair Affair auction

By JEWISH REVIEW

article created on: 2009-04-01T00:00:00

Walk into Kristy Wood’s office and you’ll notice an abundance of chairs. In addition to the dozen mismatched cast-offs surrounding a large conference table, there’s another dozen along one wall, stacked three rows deep, each one with its own name and personality.

And more chairs are on the way.

“Welcome to my world,” jokes Wood, executive director of Community Warehouse in Northeast Portland, as she surveys the crowded room. “Aren’t they fantastic?”

The chairs are the main attraction for Community Warehouse’s annual fundraising event, the Chair Affair slated for April 23 at Staver Locomotive in NW Portland where the chairs will be auctioned to the highest bidders.

The Community Warehouse at 2267 N. Interstate Ave. is a nonprofit organization that partners with more than 90 local social service agencies—including Jewish Family and Child Service—to distribute free furniture and basic household items to 65 households in need each week.

The Warehouse grew out of a JFCS project launched in the early 1990s when immigrant arrivals in Portland spiked as the former Soviet Union allowed Jews to emigrate, according to Roz Babener who headed up that project who today chairs the Community Warehouse.

When donations exceeded needs in the Jewish community, non-Jewish agencies began using the resource until eventually it was no longer necessary or feasible for JFCS to run its own warehouse as demand in the Jewish community declined with the end of the Soviet immigration.

The project became the independent Community Warehouse in 2001. In recent months, as the economy has worsened demand for its services has spiked.

Babener said the Chair Affair, now in its third year, came about as a fund-raising project after “we spotted a similar event in London on the Web done by a non-profit there.”

Over the past few months, ordinary seats plucked from the Warehouse’s inventory of donated goods were transformed into works of art by 80 local artists, who used painting, weaving, sculpting and welding to make their signature pieces.

Julianna Paradisi is one of more than 30 artists returning to the event this year. She loves the “grassroots feel” of the Community Warehouse, which relies on a small staff and many volunteers to supply more than 65 households a week with free furniture and basic household goods. “How can you not support an organization like that?” says Paradisi, who chose to rebuild a small wooden chair using driftwood from the Willamette River.

The “Chair Affair” is a family affair for first-year participant Ann Munson, who recruited her son Andy, and daughter-in-law Jenny to create three unique pieces of art.

“When I heard about the event from a Warehouse volunteer, I knew I had to get involved,” said Munson, a professional artist who works out of her greenhouse in West Linn.

Saying that she works best under pressure, Munson is still torn between sprucing up an old armchair with paint and collage, or creating a peacock planter from a vintage steel chair.

Finished chair projects were due to the Warehouse by March 5, and will be displayed during the month of April at the Anka Gallery in Northwest Portland, and at Mario’s downtown.

There will be a special First Thursday preview April 2 at the Anka Gallery and at PH Reed at Northwest 11th Avenue and Glisan Street, both from 6 to 9 p.m.

New to the auction this year are what the Warehouse is calling “Take a Seat” auction items including Blazer tickets, dinner and theatre seats, a weekend at the beach and more.

The auction will feature a sit-down dessert. Tickets for $50 can be purchased through the Community Warehouse, 503-274-4750.