390 x 315 mm
With our friend Ven Hart, Nigel and I had enjoyed a short holiday in Andalucia, spending a whole day visiting the Generalife Gardens and the associated Alhambra Palace in Granada. The motif I derived was, in several varied forms, to be seen everywhere and, consequently, I merely made my version of it and applied the design to act as a covering for the seat pad of this perfectly simple art deco style stool. I thought that the straight lines of the design rather complimented the beautiful curves which the furniture maker had worked into the shape of the stool.
Every time I look at the stool, I am also reminded of the story of ‘El Sospiro del Moro’, the Sigh of the Moor. Driven out of his home by the oh-so-gentle forces of Christianity, the last Moorish King of Granada looked back at the city as he left the flat vega from which it rises, and wept. Ever a pillar of support, his mother, whose flight from possible death he had arranged, was supposed to have said: “Today you cry like a woman for what yesterday you failed to do as a man!”
I don’t know. Mothers. Nothing’s ever good enough.
Stool restored and covered by Peter Chapman in Theberton Street.