The Yellow Chair Salon starts its fifth year! Here's the story of its past, present and what’s next:

One of the aspects of Michael David’s gallery, Life On Mars, that he was most proud of was the shared spirit and energy of creative community that formed around the gallery.  Sundays at the gallery anyone who would drop by would take a photo sitting in that now INFAMOUS beat-up YELLOW CHAIR.

That Yellow Chair was Michael’s painting studio chair that had traveled between Atlanta and Brooklyn, back and forth several times over the last decade and the comfort of that old chair helped create an informality and helped break down the barriers between artists and galleries which would lead to conversations and shared creativity.

On those Sundays, we would often end up ordering some Roberta’s pizza and discuss sports, film, music, politics, painting, sculpture, our own practices, gossip about each other, the art world, and share our lives. That yellow chair became the best symbol of what that gallery was. 

The Yellow Chair Salons have the same warm and supportive environment and shared creative spirit as those Sundays at the gallery. 

The Salons were started at the outbreak of the pandemic through a series of ‘call and response’ posts on Facebook by Michael David. In cooperation with the Truro Center for the Arts, under the leadership of Cherie Mittenthal, the program expanded to creating a virtual residency and mentoring program utilizing Zoom during the early days of fear and isolation of the pandemic. 

One of the unexpected “gifts “of Zoom is that we can work with many great artists, teachers and critics and share them with our members around the world. Members from our Salon currently come from the USA, Ireland, England, France, Chile, Spain, Norway and Switzerland, among others.

As this community grew together over an extended period of time, it became evident that the level of work deserved an exhibition component much akin to a high level graduate school. In the fall of 2022, we introduced a six-month intensive program combining one-on-one mentoring and smaller groups that would focus on continued development of one’s body of work and increased focus on professional practices while preparing work for an exhibition at M.David&Co. That program has now evolved into Symposia!.