It’s what you hear when you’re asked to join a roundtable discussion, or a welcoming sentiment inviting you to stay awhile. “‘Pull up a chair,’ It’s an invitation to talk,” mused Jenn Stucker, co-president and community outreach coordinator of AIGA Toledo, an organization for professional designers.
Inviting someone to talk is more than just a gesture for Stucker— it’s the basis of her most recent community art effort, the Sit & Tell Project, currently displayed in temporary exhibitions throughout Toledo.
Saving a seat
The Sit & Tell Project is a community effort involving over 100 visual artists and storytellers who collaborated to design chairs inspired by stories of strong women.
June 18-July 2
National Museum of the Great Lakes (1701 Front St.)
July 2–July 16
Collingwood Arts Center (2413 Collingwood Blvd.)
July 16–July 30
Sofia Quintero Arts & Cultural Center (1225 Broadway St.)
July 30–Aug 13
the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library (325 Michigan St.)
Aug 13–Aug 27
at the Ohio Theatre (3114 Lagrange St.)
Aug 27–Sep 9
Seed Coworking (25 S. St. Clair St.)
Sep 2–Sep 17
Frederick Douglass Community Center (1001 Indiana Ave.)
“Mothers and grandmothers don’t get the accolades they should, so this is a nice way to honor them,” says Stucker.
The project began in March, but Stucker had been preparing for several years. In 2012, a five thousand dollar unrestricted grant, was awarded to Stucker and The Arts Commission from The Blade and the Toledo Community Foundation for her public art project ‘You Are Here’,where artist-designed “dots” connected Toledo locations. To combine these resources, Stucker began considering themes for a project, inspired by funding and the opportunity to work with MTS Seating, a Temperance, Michigan based industrial seating company.
“I was thinking a lot about conversation and landed on the phrase ‘pull up a chair,’” explained Stucker. “The idea of conversation led me to storytelling. I learned about World Storytelling Day (March 20) and its 2016 theme ‘strong women.’”
From there, Stucker worked with The Arts Commission to identify eight key Toledo neighborhoods. On World Storytelling Day, teams set up at community landmarks in those neighborhoods and invited Toledoans to share their stories of strong women. 100 stories were collected and each story was individually assigned to selected artists, who were allowed one month to transform the tale into a design to be printed on MTS donated chairs.
Cover story
The 100 stories range in content— some focusing on a family member or a mentor, and others on a historical figure— but all maintain a positive tone, says Stucker. The very personal, and often emotional, stories provided a unique challenge for the participating artists.
“The biggest struggle was trying to find a way to interpret the story in a way that I could share it in my own style,” says Stephanie Austin, a participating artist and owner of 32nd Designs. “Trying to adapt your style to someone else’s story is difficult. As much as you want to put your spin on it, you have to honor their story.”
Like the invitation for conversation that is the basis of the project, Sit & Tell uses dialogue to create something meaningful for both the individual and the community.
To see all of the chairs, or hear the stories, visit sitandtell.com.
The project’s Instagram (@SitAndTell ) also posts one chair a day.
All 100 chairs will be on view at the Toledo Museum of Art in this
fall for a temporary exhibit (date TBA). Once the Sit & Tell Project
is complete, each chair will be available for purchase during
a silent auction, to be held online.
