The Green Chair Project
(Then and Now)
This project began in 1993, in a “crack neighborhood” in south Minneapolis, working with young people often identified as “gang members” and up to “no good”.
The murder of George Floyd changed everything.
Paul Ramsour from Elpis Enterprises reached out to see about starting up the Green Chair Project again. It was the right thing to do at the right time. Now that they’ve made the project their own. We’re committed to helping you make your own project with a manual and training (either remotely or in person). This year we’re conducting a series of workshops to carry the conversation on how do we reach the young people “not in the room”. How can we show them that there are a lot of people who care for them and are working in their favor. How can we help them find resources, jobs and opportunities in order to make better choices. If you’d like to join the conversation please contact me.
The Green Chair project jigs
Thanks to Chris Hand for creating the jig systems used to build the chairs. With lots of revisions we’ve narrowed it down to 3 simple jigs (that can be easily shipped). We’ve made another attempt at a “Do It Yourself” manual, complete with cutting diagrams. We’ve also made a 37 minute (real time) video of a chair build using the jigs. Thanks to Julia Strauss for creating detailed schematics on making the jigs in your community.
Public Art as a Community Building Strategy
Glad to be included on a couple of projects in Jack Becker’s Ted Talk.
It all started after I got jumped by a bunch of teenagers. The fight or flight response kicked in and I decided to act.
Our backyard workshop and our front yard gifts.
Chris Hand and I tore up our garden and starting hiring teenagers from the neighborhood to help us build Adirondack chairs. Chris designed a jig system to help us build the chairs with uniformity and quality. These chairs were intended as gifts to our neighbors of the two-block stretch of “crack street”. We made cards that said “If you want to change the world, one should start in their own back yard. We did just that, and these gifts are yours to enjoy. PS. It’s good to see the neighbors outside.”
The goal was always to show the power of young people when given a chance.
It felt like we had to keep on proving this point. The following year we teamed up with Jack Becker of Forecast Public Art. With the goal of building 1,000 chairs to place on the lawn of the State Capitol. Mike Hoyt came aboard and we were able to put about 30 young people to work in south and north Mpls. We sold 1/3rd of the chairs, gave away 1/3rd and saved the following 1/3rd for seed money for the following year.
Photo by Paul Shambroom
We collaborated with Urban Ventures, Summit Academy (formerly Two or More) and a Semi-truck driving school at the Dakota County Vo-tech
We ran the project again the next summer…
…and the next and the next - in fact, it ran for a total of about 12 summers, on an off. We created a social enterprise business before it was a thing. We made and gave away flyers telling people about our group and selling chairs. Thanks to Mike Hoyt joining our efforts and intern Charles Merck, we came up with different designs to sell.
Then we decided to take our efforts nationally
Chris Hand, Mike Hoyt, Tim Schweitzer, Jack Becker, Kayeng Lor and myself took about 20 teenagers from Mpls/St Paul to Washington DC. We collaborated with youth from the Duke Ellington Arts High School to create two installations. One at the base of the Washington monument the other in front of congress. Each of our young people were tasked to make public speeches about our project. We used one of Chris’s project kits as a podium.
Everything got bigger.
Continuing our collaboration with Jack Becker and Forecast Public Art and with the help of the talents of Tim Schwietzer we started making 14’ tall Adirondack chairs to activate public spaces. We also started to identify what we called our “magic recipe” for success. We knew that we could only work with a handful of young people at a time but if we could share with others what we had done, perhaps we could help set up satellite shops across the city/country.
Then something else happened along the way …corporate training.
Lisa Griebel from Crescendo Inc happened by one of our workshops and immediately saw the value in what we were doing and how that could translate to her clients. She asked if we would be interested in working with her and over 100 staff members from the Children’s Hospital - building chairs. This meant each young person would take a half dozen adults through our process. We first had to train the trainers.
Flora
LiL Jenny
G
Kayeng
Watching young people reverse roles by teaching, coaching and encouraging their adult counterparts during this chair building experience still brings tears to my eyes. The energy in the room was electric and the results far exceeded expectations. - Lisa Griebel, Crescendo Inc.
We even had plans to take the project to the United Nations.
Managing what had become a non-profit I found myself working with more adults than teenagers. I was less and less effective. Eventually “burn-out” had hit, and frankly, I started hitting the bottle way too much. (stopped drinking in 2007).