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Friday April 29, 2005

Customized wedding chairs give bride and groom a big lift

by suzanne weiss
correspondent

The time-honored Jewish wedding custom of hoisting the bride and groom — and sometimes, their parents — up on chairs and into the air, and dancing around with them, just got another lift.

Those personalized yarmulkes and party favors are all very nice, but now, thanks to Minneapolis artist Kim Ford, you can have your own personally designed chairs as well. Not only will they be handy for the hora, you can bring them home after the party is over.

San Franciscans Arielle and Durand Ford pull theirs up to the breakfast table every morning. And when their son, Zohar, now 9 months old, was born, the wedding chairs figured prominently at the brit, providing seats of honor for the baby’s godparents.

The couple, married two years ago, receives compliments on the chairs from everyone who visits their home. “You can’t help but stop and look,” said Arielle recently. “The colors [deep blues and reds] are so rich and arresting and true, and they were so obviously made with love. It’s been wonderful to have this piece of our wedding to take home and live with. It gives us a real sense of continuity.”

The chairs were a wedding gift from the artist, who is Durand Ford’s sister. They are decorated on the backs with a Tree of Life, a theme that was carried throughout the wedding, and the Hebrew names of the bride and groom, plus the wedding date. There is Hebrew calligraphy both on the backs and the seats of the chairs, quotations from the Bible and the Song of Songs, and the words “Mazel Tov” in large letters. This was no easy feat since Kim Ford is not Jewish and only became educated in the customs of Judaism after her brother became engaged to a Jewish girl and ultimately converted, taking the Hebrew name of Boaz.

The six Ford siblings, the artist explained by phone, were raised in Europe. “We’ve been exposed to many different cultures and religions,” she said. “It seemed very natural for me to embrace this aspect of our multiculturalism.”

Ford found the perfect chairs, one masculine and the other more feminine, at an antique flea market. The process of refinishing and decoration, which took four months, was a real learning experience. Fabric and decoupage were used to adorn the chairs with symbols relevant to the bride and groom.

The Hebrew lettering was the hardest part, involving consultations with the bride’s father and an Ohio rabbi and numerous faxes back and forth. Ford photocopied the letters, reducing them to the proper size and then photocopied them again, this time onto an acetate sheet. She cut each letter out and applied them onto the chairs using glue and paint for the process of decoupage. Then she finished with a coat of polyurethane lacquer.

“My work is intensely personal,” said the artist, who is presently working on chairs for two different gardens. “I work in the direction that the client wants me to go. The chairs reflect who they are being made for.”

Arielle Ford and her husband were not the only ones to be lifted in the chairs. Arielle’s parents, Wendy and Howard Kleckner, also went along for the ride. Wendy, owner of Too Caterers, the kosher division of Continental Caterers on the Peninsula, has observed some 28 years of Jewish weddings. “And I have to tell you, there hasn’t been one that doesn’t have the bride and groom lifted up on chairs — and sometimes their parents too,” she said. “My only advice to them, over the years, has been to use chairs that have arms that you can hold onto.”

But seeing and doing are two different things. At her daughter’s wedding, Kleckner experienced the chair thing in a whole new way.

“You feel lifted by the community, lifted in celebration,” she said. “You feel historically connected to the tradition, as if it’s the culmination of all the years you spent raising your child.

“And it’s so wonderful that these chairs will continue to be used, not just for the wedding, but down through the lifecycle events.”

Ford, meanwhile, got such a positive response to her wedding chairs that she’s promoting that side of her business as well. (Previously, Kim Ford Designs concentrated in graphic design and mixed-media functional art.) The Minneapolis-area American Jewish World carried a feature article about her work in January, and she’s now promoting her business “Chairs By Design” not only for weddings, but b’nai mitzvah and anniversaries as well.

Information: Kim Ford’s Chairs by Design, (612) 387-0441.

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