A Good Chair is Like a Ripe Tomato

That’s it.

Or any ripe piece of fruit.

Or an avocado!

A Good chair is like a ripe avocado.

Any chair is like any piece of fruit.

You have a variety of each type. There are a bunch of styles of apples. There are a bunch of styles of chairs.

You can have a dining chair, side chair, lounge chair, chaise lounge chair, barstool, lab stool, milking stool.

I have 2 points here with this metaphor:

One. Identification of the object/image. Identifying a tomato, or apple, or any piece of fruit, is just like identifying any piece of furniture. Identity is irreducible. Image is irreducible. A tomato is a tomato whether you have eaten it or not. A chair is a chair, whether you have sat in it or not. We call it a chair because it contains all the qualities we have agreed that comprise a chair. We encounter the image of the object - the visual of the tomato.

Two. A good chair is like a ripe tomato BECAUSE everyone knows what a ripe tomato tastes like. Or any ripe piece of fruit. What moves any tomato to a good tomato is your direct sensorial experience - not a rhetorical experience.

How do you know what a good tomato tastes like? You taste a lot of tomatos.

How do you know what good chair feels like? You sit in a lot of chairs.

How do you know when the avocado is good for slicing for a sandwich today, but will be good for guacamole in 2 days? Experience.

A good chair is like a ripe tomato because the instant you experience it, you know if it works or not.

I like making chairs because when I make a good chair, it’s like I’ve grown a ripe tomato.

It’s hard to do. It takes time, care, attention.

But the reason I like it IS because the quality is knowable. It’s not abstract. It is experiencable.

You can taste when a tomato is'n’t ripe.

You can feel when a chair isn’t ripe.

You know what a good tomato tastes like because you’ve tasted one.

You know what a good chair feels like because you’ve felt one.

A good chair is like a ripe tomato.

-E.