“Balancing Act” – SOLD Mixed Media Wall Sculpture, Late 1800s French Side Chair with Natural & Clay Stones

“Balancing Act” – The Precarious Poetry of Life’s Equilibrium

Note: Commissions accepted

This remarkable wall sculpture transforms a late 1800s French side chair into a contemporary meditation on the delicate balance that defines human existence. Created by Dallas contemporary artist Christi Meril, “Balancing Act” exemplifies the artist’s signature exploration of cairns as both ancient wayfinding practice and modern metaphor for life’s constant negotiations between stability and change, struggle and joy, permanence and fragility.

The sculpture’s foundation is an authentic French side chair dating to the late 1800s, its elegant proportions and traditional craftsmanship speaking to an era of meticulous furniture making. What makes this chair particularly compelling is its authentic artistic provenance discovered with paint splatters already adorning its surface, evidence of its previous life in an artist’s studio. These existing marks become part of the work’s narrative, honoring the chair’s history as a witness to creative expression across more than a century. The paint splatters suggest countless hours of artistic labor, the chair serving as silent companion to another artist’s journey, accumulating the beautiful accidents that occur when creativity meets daily life.

Upon this historically rich foundation, Christi has created a cairn that masterfully blends natural and artificial elements, each contributing to the work’s complex dialogue about authenticity, creation, and balance. Natural stones gathered from various landscapes during the artist’s nature immersions provide the geological anchor – each bearing the marks of wind, water, and time that create the unique textures and colors only nature can achieve. These authentic stones connect the work to the ancient tradition of cairn building, where travelers have marked paths and sacred places for millennia by carefully stacking found materials.

Interspersed with these natural elements are stones hand-shaped from clay by the artist, demonstrating the human impulse to create and participate in the geological conversation that cairns represent. Some of these sculpted stones are covered in vibrant pigments that seem to glow against the natural earth tones, while others are embedded with crushed glass that catches and refracts light like crystalline memories frozen in clay. The interplay between natural and created stones speaks to humanity’s relationship with the environment – sometimes working in harmony with natural forces, sometimes adding our own interpretations and interventions.

The bright blue and luminous green stones provide striking color contrasts that energize the composition while suggesting the varied emotional and experiential landscape of human life. The precarious balance of the entire cairn becomes a visual metaphor for the daily balancing act we all perform managing work and rest, solitude and connection, ambition and acceptance, hope and realism. Each stone depends on those below it for support while providing stability for those above, creating a physical manifestation of how our lives are built through accumulated experiences, relationships, and choices.

The black stone embedded with sparkling fragments suggests the beautiful complexity that can emerge from life’s darkest moments, while the natural sandstone tones ground the composition in earth-born wisdom. The topmost stone, small and silvery, crowns the cairn like a moment of clarity achieved through careful attention and patient balance.

The title “Balancing Act” operates on multiple levels referring to the literal physical balance required to maintain the stone stack, the metaphorical balance required to navigate life’s challenges and opportunities, and the artistic balance between honoring historical objects and creating contemporary meaning. The work suggests that life itself is a continuous balancing act, requiring constant attention, adjustment, and faith that the next stone can be successfully placed.

Mounted to the wall using a custom polished acrylic cleat system, the sculpture appears to float slightly away from the wall, emphasizing the precarious nature of all balance and the way meaningful moments seem suspended in time. The mounting system ensures security while maintaining the work’s sense of delicate equilibrium.

This piece particularly resonates with collectors who appreciate furniture art, French antiques, and philosophical explorations of life’s complexities. The work bridges multiple artistic traditions assemblage art, environmental sculpture, found object art, and contemporary cairn interpretation while remaining accessible through its central metaphor of balance as life’s fundamental challenge and achievement.

“Balancing Act” represents Christi Meril’s ongoing investigation into how stone stacking whether literal or suggested through geological forms appears throughout her artistic practice as both physical action and conceptual foundation. The work demonstrates how antique objects can be honored through contemporary intervention, creating new narratives that respect historical craftsmanship while addressing timeless human experiences.

This piece has been sold to a collector who appreciated its unique combination of French antique heritage, artistic history, and contemporary cairn interpretation.