They’re on the curb in every city, especially on trash pickup days. They’re upholstered, varnished, wicker, painted, sometimes chipped and often unloved. They’re abandoned chairs, and they all tug at Moira Stevenson’s heart.

Stevenson, a Canadian artist now based in London, began collecting abandoned chairs and bringing them home a few years ago. After amassing more than 200 chairs and running out of space, she decided to start two new collections: one of chair photos turned into postcards or art prints, and one of animated short films telling stories of discarded chairs. She posts the chair photos (available as notecards, prints, postcards or free e-cards) at A Safe Place for Chairs and has posted several short films at Chairity Case. “Every chair is beautiful,” Stevenson says on the Chairity Case blog.

Matt Cahill, a Toronto photographer, agreed. He began noticing and photographing discarded chairs on the streets of Toronto last year, then encouraged others to do the same. Cahill now has a Flickr set of “Conversations with Abandoned Chairs,” all taken with his cell phone camera. He describes the project as not quite journalism and not quite art, and enjoys the challenge of capturing each chair’s essence without the use of professional equipment.
We’ve all heard the adage “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” – but both Cahill and Stevenson have turned one man’s trash into everyone’s piece of art.

Want to submit your own chair photo? Email Cahill at m-cahill@rogers.com, or Stevenson at chairitycase@gmail.com.