Sunday March 24, 2013

The stories that furniture tell

Culture Cul De Sac by Jacqueline Pereira

If you’ve got old furniture, especially pieces that have been in the family for decades, cherish them for the link they provide with the past.

IT arrived in my inbox, an unexpected surprise in late January this year. Embedded in the magazine newsfeed that I subscribe to, it lay unopened until a curious click set it free. And I was transported.

To an Irish idyll, a picturesque village where elderly people talk about their furniture and the furniture talks about itself and its glorious past.

Who would expect a short film about real, old, rural folk and clumsy, decrepit, farmhouse furniture to be so enchanting? I was captivated by the story’s simplicity in tracing the restoration of 16 pieces of antique furniture.

Filmed within two miles of where director Tony Donoghue’s family has lived for five generations, the short begins at a pub that belonged to his mother’s best friend. Donoghue was inspired to tell the story after he saw the pub’s new owners throw out an old dresser that had stood in the pub kitchen for 150 years, after the 80-year-old woman publican had sold up.

Donoghue’s film, Irish Folk Furniture, was picked out of 8,102 applications to win Best Animation at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. When I first watched the utterly delightful eight-and-a half-minute short, I was so mesmerised that I watched it many times. Unfortunately, you can only catch it on the Internet now as a 30-second trailer or part of a news clip.

Spurred by the incident of the dumped dresser, the director wanted to investigate Irish people’s relationship with the furniture they inherit. He also hopes the film will encourage people to stop throwing away their old dressers and recognise these items as inherent heritage.

So when I went over to a friend’s for dinner at her new place, I was thrilled to discover two old-fashioned chairs on display. Jill Jamieson’s paternal grandfather had died when her father was only 12, so her only “contact” with her grandfather was these two chairs inherited by her father, a returned WW2 serviceman.

During her childhood, said Jill, an Australian consultant who has made Malaysia her base, the chairs were upholstered in a knobbly, maroon boucle kind of fabric chosen by her mother.

“We were never encouraged to sit on them, but the chairs sat anachronistically in the corners of our modern home.”

After her father died, Jill helped her mother move them into a smaller place with the chairs once again upholstered in pastel tapestry. Although her mother loved them, still nobody sat on the chairs. Eventually, when her mother passed away, Jill had the two chairs stored for a while. Then, last year, after she had decided to remain in Malaysia, she brought them over.

She’s since had them upholstered in animal print, more in tune with her taste for over-the-top tropical decor.

“Just like my mother, I love them,” declared Jill, who doesn’t sit on the chairs, either. Well over 100 years old, the chairs have now been upholstered to suit the tastes of several generations of women, “but have not felt many bottoms!”

Recently, I spent an afternoon pottering about in Antique Directory, rummaging through rooms packed to the brim with old furniture. More were stacked outside in the bungalow’s compound, dusty and in various states of disrepair. Amanda, the current owner, had worked for the previous Scandinavian owner for a decade before taking over the business and running it for the last five years. She continues to source for new pieces at European auctions.

Sabahan Amanda has since learned to appreciate antique furniture and is well-versed in the origins of pieces.

“The history – the type of wood of each piece has its own story,” she said. When I asked if she felt that the furniture speaks to her, she said: “Yes. Especially late at night when the showroom is already locked. I’ve heard music from the pianos.”

These stories about old furniture remind me of an armchair I once rescued from an old, abandoned bungalow in the little town I grew up in. I still remember years ago when I put it in my car boot, tied it securely with rope and drove it home in triumph. Several other pieces from my childhood have been restored, and I still have them.

Among them are a coat-rack, a telephone stand and a 1940s sofa with two armchairs. There are others, though not in my home: a three-door cupboard, a tall mirror and an unusual cane living-room set that must be at least 60 years old. Oh, and a couple of bird-baths.

I’ve always liked old furniture, but never really paid it too much attention or treated it very preciously. The flat-screen TV sits in the middle of the coat rack and a modern lamp graces the old telephone table. But occasionally I look at these two pieces and am reminded of my childhood – rushing to answer the phone and toppling the table, phone and all; the family’s clothes, books, shoes and toys that the coat-rack has held over the generations.

And each time the memories are different, eliciting a story from deep within like an unexpected yet welcome surprise. It lies unopened like that magazine newsfeed, until curiosity sets it free.

> Delighting in dead ends, Jacqueline Pereira seeks unexpected encounters to counter the outmoded. Find her on Facebook at Jacqueline-Pereira-Writing-on and write to her at star2@thestar.com.my.

News

Sunday March 24, 2013

The stories that furniture tell

Culture Cul De Sac by Jacqueline Pereira