50 Sad Chairs

Before I start this interview, I have to apologize to author Bill Keaggy. This interview was completed in early 2008–and I promptly misplaced the interview. Don’t ask me how. But I still think, while it’s late, it’s still a great interview (thanks to Keaggy’s answers) and an interesting book. So here’s the interview. But first some background (from the publisher, BlueQ) before getting to the questions: “Bill Keaggy witnesses and documents tired and tossed chairs in downtown St. Louis. Each image is a mixed bag of forlorn and funny, a veritable commentary on our culture of consumption (at least as it relates to chairs). 104 pages.” The book’s a real bargain at $5.99 and is available from the publisher or Amazon.

Tim O’Shea: How did you come up with the idea for the book? Did this project predate the grocery list book?

Bill Keaggy: The sad chairs project predated the grocery list book but the grocery list project predated both the sad chairs project and book …the project started in — as they all do — a moment of silly serendipity. This is what happened: 1) I saw a broken, beat down chair. 2) I pulled out my trusty pocket digital camera. 3) I took a picture, thinking, “Wow, what a sad chair.” 4) I liked the ring of the phrase “sad chair,” but I knew that I tend to get carried away with my projects so I decided to put parameters on this one. I’d only take 50 pictures of 50 sad chairs. About 500 chairs later (I posted the first 50 to my site) the weird and wonderful folks at BlueQ asked me if I wanted to turn the project into a book. I said yes.

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