Dedicated to the children at
St. Vincent's Home Orphanage
Table #9 A table for our "Chess Pieces"
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"My work is a game, a very serious game"
- M.C. Escher
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A wise man once said, "The measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members". No child should ever have to fear not having a family while struggling for basic resources. In the game of chess many play by the clock. There was a time in my life where I feared time. Before time runs out I want to make this table count!
Dedicated to the youth at Bennie Costa Housing Plaza
"One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful"
-Sigmund Freud
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A boy that lived in the housing development a block away from my house was walking by admiring a table I was working on while making a comment, "I want one." At that very moment, I didn't have the time to build him one. However, a year later, I donated one to Pleasant View Project in his request. Shortly thereafter, a woman from Bennie Costa Housing Plaza asked if I could donate one to her housing development because her boys play chess. So I did!
Dedicated in the Honor of Alphonse Araujo
and all those who serve
"The energy of the mind is the essence of life"
-Aristotle
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After the death of my father in the early 90's, I spent many days and nights at my uncles house. He received a Purple Heart for his time spent in Vietnam. I remember regularly breaking bread over his table. Now I'm in a position to give him a table back!
Dedicated at Columbus Park to Holly Sarlo
"But I have miles to go before I sleep and miles to go before I sleep"
-Robert Frost
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Ambivalence is a complex emotion that everyone can identify with. On one hand, I get to put a piece of work in Columbus Park at the corner side of Beetie and Wall. The park that is adjacent from Holy Rosary Church that sits between two local legendary bakeries. At the same time, the fixture stands as a memoir for a passing of a woman I had a preteen crush on. Looking back with much nostalgia, it was a time period of boyhood friends spray painting boxes on brick schools for stickball games. Much time has past since then and I have my own daughter to raise in this community. Chess is a game I stumbled upon by mere chance and have grown to love. But hey, some say that this is just a table!
Dedicated to Professor Michael J. Vieira at
Bristol Community College, Fall River MA
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."
- Mark Twain
The table is being worked to my liking and before grinding, is penetrated with a sealant to reinsure its longevity.The sand, aggregate,cement, and water create a rugged block full of bumps, holes, scrapes, and scars. Embedded steel, wire, fibers, and rebar are applied to reinforce its strength despite an overkill for this application. My hand occilates back and forth like a pendulum as I polish the table top up to a sheen and it starts to appear like glass. In the moment, I think about the transparency of Michael J. Vieira and his 40 years in education. I begin to nurture it until in evolves into a multifunctional accent that can be utilized in many ways all centering around the table. On its surface, it will appear very smooth and very soft until otherwise tested.
Dedicated to Patrick Blake Gray at
SStar Rehabilitation Center, Fall River MA
"Trust me, you'll lose everything"
-Heroin
Using my sense of humor, it has been written that I'm attempting smuggle "chess paraphernalia" into the community, instead of "drug paraphernalia." Unfortunately too many folks have succumb to this illness. A week prior to my friend passing, he said that my idea was fantastic. He absolutely loved it. Throughout the years, I wish I could of done more to help him with his own struggle. It's bone chilling how things of this sort can end. I still dream of my dear friend having a six figure income, being a father, and free from being chained to this disease.
Doctor's Office 198 Hanover Street, Fall River MA
"Make no small plans. It has no ability to stir the soul."
-Machiavelli
A local psychiatrist purchased a table to encourage interaction between his patients. He said to me, "Do you know why I bought the table from you, James? Because you're the only person who said to me that you were going to help others." His words only added more fuel to the flame that drives me to continue my tenacious effort in my life quest to bring my vision to something bigger than myself. He also said, "Who knows... maybe you'll just spark the next great American chess mind on your chess tables!!"
Donated to Heritage State Park, Fall River MA
"There's no place like home"
- Judy Garland (The Wizard of Oz)
This table was donated to Heritage State Park. The setting was chosen for the simplicity of displaying my love for the city in which I was raised. It sits adjacent to Battleship Cove and beneath the Braga Bridge alongside the Mount Hope Bay.
Donated to the patients at Corrigan Mental Health Hospital Fall River, MA
"The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step"
- Lao Tzu
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A few years after learning how to play chess, I put my knowledge of concrete along with past experiences and built a chess table for people who cannot function temporarily in the outside community due to one mental health problem or another. It was given to function as a sensory tool, to relax, and play chess. The most important thing is that my child grows up around something positive as she is my inspiration. From that very instant I vowed to take this abstract idea and turn it into a concrete one!
Donated to Pleasant View Housing Project
Fall River, Massachusetts
"What the eyes see and the ears hear the mind believes"
- Harry Houdini
Shortly after the freestanding table was destroyed at Pleasant View that I donated, I received a phone call from a close friend. He said, "You did that on purpose. You knew it would get destroyed if you didn't cement the table into the ground." My friend has a wild imagination, suggesting that I would deliberately do something of this nature to gain publicity from the public. Nobody would believe such a thing, as if I intended to conduct some sort of sociological experiment. One things for sure, there's not a scratch on the table at Bennie Costa!
Dedicated at Maplewood Park
Fall River, Massachusetts
"Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds"
- Gordon B. Hinckley
A local business man from my home town of Fall River, Massachusetts, purchased this table from me after seeing my previous work. He has dedicated this table to his parents for their hard work and life long contribution to the city I live in and love.