" I have six matching dining chairs with blue stained slatted backs, slights projections where the front legs rise above the level of the seat and the back of the chairs have blue knobs on. I’ve had them nearly twenty years. They were the first pieces of furniture I bought.
Occasionally I use them as dining chairs around one of John’s round tables but more often than not they take on other roles.

Two are in service as display stands for large oil paintings for the duration of my open studio. Two more are acting as racks for watercolours and prints. Each chair holds a dozen frames. The front legs stick up just enough to stop the pictures slipping off the front of the seat while you flick through them and the tops of the frames rest against the high seatback. One of the chairs is in use today as an easel for a drawing I’m doing from a bedroom window and the sixth is sitting vacantly by the telephone.

The seats are of leather stretched between level wooden sides that make it possible to support planks between them to make temporary benches. This proved useful one New Year’s Eve when 18 came to dinner. On that occasion there was still a bare concrete floor where we ate. Subsequently the entire dining room has been built around the chairs."

www.johnbawtree.com

John Bawtree.