Vic Socotra

19 May 2008

The Eames Chair

Mom bought the chair more than fifty years ago. That is remarkable in and of itself, since there wasn’t a lot of money then, and the Eames cachet was pricey then. What’s more, there has been a lot of movement in the last half century, and plenty of opportunity for a chair to get banged up and worn out from hard use.

The chair and some of its mates had been the topic of interest for a few Sundays running, which is when I get my slice of her life in our weekly chats.

The Eames Chair is now in the airy house by the Bay, and Mom probably never could have imaged that is where she would eventually come to live when she left her little Ohio Valley town for Bethany College.

“I never went back,” she said. “There was no time. We went to school year-round because of the war, and then it was off to New York. I think it is probably better to have the summers off.”

I laughed in agreement, thinking about the imperatives of a different time, with the world in global war.

Mom had been introduced to Dad on an arranged date, he of the dark Gergory Peck good looks and she of the pert and determined eyes. They had lived on the other side of the East River from Manhattan for a while, and then got word that the car companies were hiring in Michigan. It was a gamble, packing things up to go west, and an adventure.

I have a snap-shot of the young couple, Mom with a sexy pout, and Dad in white shirt and dark slacks in front of a small white bungalow, suitcases at their feet. They were just kids.

We had come around to the topic of the chairs through the window of the impending sixtieth anniversary of the couple who had set up the blind date long ago.

It was a marvelous conversation, and reminded me how precious it is to capture the moments of life. Mom was a little peevish about the chair, and she does not get that way often. She had spent three weeks on research for a presentation to the Historical Association, and she had been on tap to host the thirty-odd ladies who attend the meetings.

In the course of her way to cataloging the furniture in the house by the Bay she had realized that some of the chairs that she had purchased for their first home were something special.

One of them is an Eames Chair, in fact, three or four or them. Another is a womb-like structure designed by a fellow named Saarinen. Copies these days can go for three grand, and she was amazed that she had the real thing, in good shape, sitting in the living room.

She had been prepared to give a nice talk on the chairs, and the people who created them, and the Cranbrook Academy movement that defined the high art and architecture of 1950s America.

“You know,” she said. “Detroit was quite a place back then. The car companies were hiring like crazy, and there was real art being made. It was a magical place and time.”

I turned that over in my mind, the idea of the words “Detroit” and “magical” appearing in the same sentence without irony.

“So how did your presentation go, Mom?”

“It did not happen. The President decided to have a business meeting and it went on for two hours, talking about by-laws and nonsense. There was no time to talk about the chairs. Some people are so self centered. I told her it was three o’clock and that the subject of a business meeting had not even been on the agenda. Some people think things are all about them.”

I had to agree. And so we are going to talk a little bit about chairs this week, gentle readers, and the people who designed and sat in them. And we are going to talk about a magical place that was called Detroit.

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