Hot Seat of Memory

Hartford, CT

“FURNITURE as Object, Furniture as Subject,'' an exhibition of work by 26 artists and craftsmen who use furniture as a means of artistic expression, is on view…at the Aetna Institute Gallery in Hartford.

Joy Wulke, an interior designer and sculptor from Stony Creek, is another object maker, but one who juxtaposes unusual materials and forms to create furniture that sometimes generates controversy among viewers. Her ''Hot Seat of Memory'' is a chair with a cubelike seat and pyramid-shaped back, made entirely of pale green glass and filled with pointy broken shards.

''Joy's chair is a little off-putting because it's glass and you assume you can't sit on it, and because the shards look sharp and dangerous,'' Ms. Lindroth said. ''Yet she thinks of it as a metaphor for water, this light through broken glass.''

Ms. Wulke said she first became interested in using glass in her work while photographing abandoned buildings in Montana a few years ago, when she noticed that ''the glass left in the windows had a reflectiveness that seemed to capture the spirit of the house.'' However, she finds that her predilection for using glass to convey emotion and abstract spiritual ideas in her sculptural work does not always translate to the viewer, as is evidenced by reactions to ''Hot Seat of Memory.''

''Some people find it beautiful and intriguing and get into the magical, allegory aspect of it - small, escaped chairs floating on a sea of broken glass, a sense of escaped purpose,'' she explained. ''The rest are sort of taken aback by the danger aspect of it, the question of whether something you can see through can support your weight.''

From New York Times Article, “Gallery Shows Furniture as Art”, nytimes.com

1987