From Curbside to curated: Chestnut Center launches 'Chairish Our City’ downtown trail

MARSHFIELD – Twenty-eight vintage fiberglass chairs are getting a second life as local masterpieces — and downtown Marshfield is the gallery.

The Chestnut Center for the Arts has launched "Chairish Our City," a community art fundraiser that pairs local artists with sponsoring businesses to bring color and creativity to the city's streets.

Running July 10 through September 10, the initiative invites residents and visitors to follow the "Chair Trail," a self-guided tour of hand-painted and transformed chairs displayed in storefronts and businesses throughout downtown.

Each of the 28 chairs was reimagined by a local artist, turning ordinary fiberglass seating into one-of-a-kind works of public art.

“So these chairs were being released because they had been replaced for with different chairs, and rather than send them to the garbage, which I feel like the landfill has enough stuff; these are still usable. Somebody suggested selling them. I don't know that we would sell 28 of them, and we'd still be storing them here,” said Lyn Steinmetz, who originated the concept.

“So, we could give them away, could put them on the curb. I had seen a really cool one on Pinterest, just like the day before, and we had just been talking in the office about, I mentioned the city of Greenwood, last summer or the summer before, they had painted bicycles. And it was so pretty in downtown, and I said let's paint these and put them downtown.

“So, I got them all in on it, and they agreed, and so we started polling for artists, area artists, and people could come and pick up a chair, take it home, paint it, and bring it back.”

But the trail is only half the fun.

Every chair on display will also be raffled off, giving participants a chance to bring a piece of the trail home with them.

Raffle tickets are available at the Chestnut Center for the Arts, Visit Marshfield and MACCI, and buyers can choose which chair — or chairs — they'd like a shot at winning.

“Each location will have a box specific to the chair that they have at their site. You can drop your tickets in that box,” Steinmetz added.

“Then on Sept. 10^th, we will bring all the chairs back here, and we will line them up either in the courtyard, if weather permits, or in the ballroom, depending on what's going on. We're also doing our big Oktoberfest Celebration [on Saturday, Sept. 12], so we're hoping to see a lot of people here, a lot of music, a lot of fun activities. And then we'll pull the raffle tickets and see who wins them.”

A trail map for the downtown area is available at www.chestnutarts.org/support-us/chairish-our-city-fundraiser.

Visitors to the downtown can follow the map while browsing the area.

“So, you can get the map, and you can go on a little treasure hunt and go around and find all the chairs,” Steinmetz added.

“I said if we put these chairs downtown, people will walk up and down the street, they might go into a business that they've never been in before because; they have to go in and drop off a raffle ticket. And they might go, ‘Oh my gosh, I didn't know you had all this stuff here.’ So, a definite win-win for the city.”