Red Chair, Red World

Years ago, while visiting my friend Marty Perlman — one of the best photographers I’ve ever known — I found myself in his studio while he stepped away. Marty’s place was a temple of light and shadow, always full of curiosity, always whispering “look closer.” On this day, the stage was empty but for a red chair sitting on his white cyclorama (or just cyc) — the seamless background photographers have in their studios — alone and unassuming.

But I see it now for what it is: an invitation.
Not just to sit, but to enter. . . this crimson cathedral.

I turned it ever so slightly, as if to suggest it had something to say. Then I stepped back. The color hit me first — not just red, but Red, with a capital R. It wasn’t a color so much as an atmosphere, a wavelength I could feel humming behind my eyes. I took a couple of shots, almost without thinking.

Later, I opened it in Photoshop and the memory returned like a bolt of heat. The color demanded more than realism. I gave it what it asked for: a wash of red that bled across every pixel, as if the very air had become pigment. A chair, yes — but also a relic, a riddle, a beacon in some dreamlike theater of the mind. I brought the shadows back gently, coaxing out the detail that still lived beneath the burn. Let the color wash over everything, but not erase it.

And then I tucked it away. Never showed it. Never needed to. The image was like a song only I could hear — a glowing ember on my hard drive, pulsing quietly in its corner, waiting.

But I see it now for what it is: an invitation. Not just to sit, but to enter. To take your place in this crimson cathedral, where the edges melt, time wavers, and silence hums like a hidden frequency. There's no map here. Just a chair and a color and the wide open space between them.

Pull it up. Take a breath. Let the red do the rest.

Is there a single object or color in your space that feels almost magical when you slow down to notice it?

— Lawrence

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