The Furniture Bank of Metro Atlanta seeks talented artists to apply for its annual Chair Challenge!
The Chair Challenge is a unique design contest where artists transform furniture into works of art to be auctioned off at Chairish the Future! Any chair, table, or other small piece of furniture may be used as the starting point for your artistic creation, or you can make a piece of furniture from scratch.
2026 Chair Challenge submissions must be delivered to the Furniture Bank no later than Friday, February 13th.
Only the top 20 individual artist pieces will be selected upon submission by a jury. Selected artists will receive:
- Two tickets to the Chairish the Future gala (valued at $100 each)
- Picture and artist bio on the Furniture Bank website
- Display of piece and signage at the gala
2026 Chair Challenge Entries
"Haunted! Do Not Sit." by Josh Milstead (Intelligent Bean)
"Haunted! Do Not Sit." is a Victorian-style chair transformed into an interactive arcade sculpture. The back cushion has been replaced with a miniature diorama of brick dungeon ruins, visible through an embedded transparent screen. By scanning a QR code, viewers use their phones as controllers to play a custom game displayed within the chair. The game follows a young girl trying to reclaim her stolen stuffed animals from the ghosts haunting the furniture. The piece turns a familiar domestic object into a playable portal, merging sculpture, storytelling, and interactive design. Learn more about the chair at https://chair-2026.onedeadbird.com/. About the Artist: Josh Milstead is an Atlanta-based interactive artist who has been building games since childhood. With a formal background in game design and a deep focus on user experience, his work centers on how people move through, touch, and emotionally connect with digital spaces. Working at the intersection of technology and art, Milstead creates custom arcade games embedded within detailed dioramas-miniature physical worlds that house playable digital experiences. By merging handcrafted environments with interactive software, his work blurs the boundary between digital and physical. Artist Website: http://jmilstead.com/
"Nitetime Tablework" by Nitetime Paperwork
Nitetime Paperwork Collaborative Table. Acrylic paint, paint pen, and marker on wood, sealed with a clear acrylic coat. An original hand-painted artwork by Atlanta artists Jean Nix and Jimmy Dills, created under their collective Nitetime Paperwork. The table merges Nix's expressive language of emotional geometry with Dills' bold color fields and rhythmic linework, transforming a functional object into an immersive sculptural painting. Moments of neon color offer a brief departure from the everyday-an invitation into joy, play, and imaginative escape. About the Artists: Nitetime Paperwork is a collaborative art collective and studio co-founded by Atlanta artists Jimmy Dills and Jean Nix. Built as a shared creative home, the collective brings together artists working across painting, mixed media, and experimental form, each evolving their practice while contributing to a larger environment of dialogue, cross-pollination, and creative exchange.Rooted in process, curiosity, and risk-taking, Nitetime Paperwork operates as both a physical studio and a conceptual platform. Artists within the collective develop personal bodies of work, explore new material approaches, and share space, critique, and inspiration. The result is a community of distinct artistic voices strengthened through collaboration. Artists' Website: https://www.nitetimepaperwork.com/
"The Cheshire Cat Chest" by Ross Peterkin
The Cheshire Cat Chest is a wooden storage piece featuring a bold graffiti-style design of the Cheshire Cat, highlighted by a vibrant pink-to-neon-green gradient background and thick black outlines that give it a modern, street-art look. About the Artist: Rossi Jay is a Barbados-born, Atlanta-based multidisciplinary artist recognized for bold, high-impact work that fuses pop culture, graffiti, anime, and nostalgic iconography. Drawing from the visuals that shaped entire generations - from classic Saturday morning cartoons to the expressive energy of street art - Rossi Jay reimagines familiar imagery through a contemporary, culturally layered lens. Deeply influenced by Caribbean heritage and urban environments, Rossi Jay's work explores memory, identity, and the emotional connection audiences have with formative visual culture. Through dynamic composition, vibrant color palettes, and expressive line work, beloved characters and symbolic references are transformed into powerful statements that bridge past and present. Working across digital illustration, large-scale murals, canvas, apparel, and collectible design, Rossi Jay moves fluidly between fine art and street culture. Each piece carries a sense of movement and narrative - blending homage with reinvention - and resonates with collectors, brands, and communities alike. With a growing presence in both gallery spaces and public art environments, Rossi Jay continues to create immersive, visually striking works that celebrate cultural influence while pushing contemporary boundaries. Artist Website: www.instagram.com/jissor
"Bright and Pretty" by CisneArts
This is a vintage chair that was salvaged and pieced back together making it more of an art chair than a sitting chair. Painted in red with designs that were inspired by Scandinavian folk art. Design colors are in white, gold, and pastel pink. About the Artist: Madison of CisneArts is an Atlanta based artist considering herself as a gypsy artist as she works within several mediums including: hair, acrylic painting, wood burning, murals, fiber arts, miniatures, and more. First known in Atlanta for her swan art contributions to free art, she is also known for painting lots of eyes and Fung-eyes! Artist Instagram: @cisnearts_official
"ATL on the Move" by Nicholas Twiner
This chair celebrates the many machines that make Atlanta a city ever on the move. Midtown and Downtown Atlanta skylines are painted above the yellow 17th street bridge (integrated with the chair structure). Planes and trains dot the rungs. The city's forest encircles its seat. About the Artist (Nicholas Twiner): I am an Atlanta-based contemporary landscape painter working at the intersection of visual documentation and civic engagement. I apply sustained aesthetic attention to the overpasses, interchanges, and transit corridors that most travelers overlook. My work reframes Atlanta's highways as contemporary aqueducts: monumental public works that encode decades of negotiation over space, movement, and collective memory. By rendering these structures through the lens of landscape tradition, I invite viewers to reconsider the built environment with the same reverence once reserved for pastoral scenes. My practice involves public research and history components-asking how these concrete scars came to be, what was lost in their construction, how we live in the face of permanent alterations to the natural world. Artist Website: https://twiner.co
"You Are Loved" by Bear Cake Studios
The purpose of "You Are Loved" is to remind others that no matter their struggle, no matter any negative thoughts that come to mind or words spoken by others, they are beautiful. They are One-Of-A-Kind. You are loved. You are seen. About the Artist: Macey Milstead (Bear Cake Studios) is an Atlanta based artist. Macey has been on hiatus after recently having her third son, but is slowly coming back into the ATL art scene again. Art consumes her life (She's even a preschool art teacher) and strongly believes art is important and connects us all.
"Reaching up with my friends" by ELLEN Winsor
Clear Louis Philippe chair painted on the reverse with acrylic. About the Artist (ELLEN Winsor): Originally from Coconut Grove, Florida. I moved to Atlanta in 1976 after receiving a bachelors in Art from Florida State University. My area of study was children's book illustration however now I enjoy painting, colorful, loose, plain air landscapes.
"And then came MP3 players" by Gretchen Neal
This 22"x22" parsons table celebrates the evolution of music formats. Using original records, 8-tracks, cassettes and CDs it charts the journey of sound from grooved discs to invisible streams. For a little added movement and melody, vinyl musical notes decorate the legs and surface. Topped with a sturdy 1/4" thick glass, this whimsical table will bring nostalgia and novelty to any music lover's home or office. About the Artist: Gretchen Neal is originally from Winter Park, Fla. but began her art career, post college in Atlanta, Ga. Her background is in graphic design. Gretchen won multiple awards working in newspaper and magazine advertising. After several years in advertising, she left the field to begin teaching small group, after-school art classes to children. This is where she found her passion. As an art instructor, Gretchen has had the opportunity to teach children and adults of varied backgrounds. Her teaching experience has spanned 35+ years. Many of the wildly creative art classes have taken place in her home studio. These fun classes have always offered students innovative ways to use multiple mediums and experiment with various creative techniques. Gretchen has also worked as a specialty painter, executing ideas for interior designers. Her extensive works include murals, faux-finished walls and hand painted furniture. For a span of 10 years Gretchen participated in the Visiting Artist program in the public school system. Her 45-minute presentation, based on her book, "Think Outside the Sphere" cleverly introduces the concept of 'highlight and shadow' to children. For the past 27 years Gretchen has successfully provided a fun and educational Summer Art Camp program to children in Ormond beach, Fla. She offers these fun and educational art camps at St James Episcopal Church. Most recognizably, Gretchen has collaborated with Coca Cola's Global Marketing executives to conceive and facilitate large scale, corporate art projects. These projects were designed to promote a sense of community among Coca Cola's employees. In 2018 Gretchen designed a line of Holiday Medical Ornaments that have been an ongoing success. She currently has 24 whimsical ornament designs in her collection. Artist Websites: www.gretchenneal.com / https://www.etsy.com/shop/HMObyghm
"Château Chic" by Jennifer Germain
This lovingly restored pair of chairs tells a story of home, heritage, and second chances. Once gathered around the table of a bustling family of six, these solid, sturdy chairs have already held years of laughter, meals, homework, and heartfelt conversations. Passed along to begin their next chapter, they've been thoughtfully transformed with a soft chalk paint finish and hand-sealed with wax for durability and depth. Their refreshed patina gives them the charm of heirlooms-made to appear gracefully older than their years. Finished in a shabby chic style, the pair blends timeless character with renewed purpose. Accompanied by a stunning glass vase and elegant silk orchids, this set is ready to anchor a cozy breakfast nook, reading corner, or intimate dining space in your home. These chairs aren't just furniture-they're a continuation of story, stability, and style. By CHAIRishing them, you help create new beginnings for families building homes of their own. About the Artist: A graduate of Atlanta College of Art (BFA Communication Design) and Georgia Institute of Technology (MS Industrial Design), Jennifer spent many years navigating the corporate world, boutique design firms, and everything in between. Along the way, she discovered that her most balanced and fulfilling path meant building something of her own: Red Hair Girl Designs & Souther Fried Art Company.||She is currently embracing her most hands-on roles yet-serving as a teacher, dedicated volunteer, and Scout leader-continuing to shape young minds and give back to her community with the same creativity and heart she brings to her design work.||Jennifer has been honored to participate as a CHAIRish the Future artist since 1997. She holds the Furniture Bank close to her heart and is deeply grateful to support an organization that transforms houses into homes for families in need. ❤
"Always Time For Tea" by Laila Bell
Custom refurbished tea table. About the Artist (Laila Bell): Certified Old Soul. Vintage Connoisseur. Living life through Film, Music & Fashion. What's old can be new...its tried & true! Artist Website: https://www.instagram.com/yourgmashouse
"Endless Possibilities" by Goose
This chair was a free find from my mom's neighborhood group and sat in my bedroom for a few years until I was ready to make my very first CHAIRish entry. I repainted the boring blue chair shiny black, added splatter paint, and then painted a moon, stars, and space designs in bright, glow-in-the-dark neon colors. I chose space because possibilities are endless-and all kids should dream BIG! About the Artist (Goose): After watching his mom make and donate CHAIRish chairs his whole life, this 11 year old Boy Scout with a heart of gold discovered how much he loves helping others. He enjoys earning service hours and was excited to join in this year by creating and donating his very own chair!
