Sally Linville
Chicken Footstool Creator
Ten years ago, Sally Linville had no intention of starting a Chicken Footstool business when, during her senior year studying Interior Architecture & Product Design at Kansas State University, in a furniture build studio, she conceived Henny and Penny, her first ever chicken footstools. The project was to create two small pieces of furniture, and when she pitched her idea to the professor, she had her doubts. “In hindsight, that was a really cinematic moment where he could have said no,” she philosophizes. But to the joy of many, he did not. Instead “he asked the question, ‘What’s the essence of a chicken?’” driving her to determine which fowl features were fundamental to express her chicken concept (before the more arduous task of figuring out how to build them). She ascertained that feathers, feet, beak and combs are the tangible elements required to abstract a chicken, but that the essence of the chicken was more than physical.
“In the spirit of trying to be thankful for the food that we eat and the life cycle process,” she had an epiphany, “The egg is kind of the shape of the inside of a chicken! How cool would it be if somebody sat on one of these chickens and thought about eggs and the miracle that is an egg: being hatched and turning into a chicken, and to be thankful for all of that.” Her reverence for the egg led her to her construction concept. She would build the inner body in an egg shape, turned out of solid wood. For the feet and beak, she needed something sturdier than wood, and bronze was her choice. For the feathers and comb, she felted wool. Working with bronze and wool fibers were firsts for her, but that didn’t stop her. “I’ve always been a collaborative maker, aware of what I don’t know and willing to ask questions, and surrounded by people who know so many things that I can learn from. This was just a big realization of that process.”
Sally pins red felt shapes onto the head for the comb. This chicken’s feathers are made with a custom blend of colors, spun into a chunky yarn, and knit with a loose loop stitch.
Collaboration is an understatement; there are many hands that touch a single chicken from inception to completion. After the chicken is designed, the bronze legs and beak are cast by Ad Astra Art Bronze in Lawrence, in either small or large (the two sizes of chickens Sally offers). Next, a man in Sally’s home town of Lyons, KS, turns the inner egg out of a solid wood log then passes the egg along to Sally’s dad, also in Lyons, who fabricates chicken hips and spring-like necks out of metal and then assembles and welds all of the inner parts to create a “naked chicken.” The naked chicken is then transported to Kansas City where, at The City Girl Farm, the naked chicken is upholstered into a footstool with a unique chicken shape, achieved by layering foam, burlap, and a double-layer pattern of muslin with an inter-layer of stuffing, which Sally has humorously dubbed the “chicken underpants.” After the underpants comes the feathering, but even that is a multi-step process with many design decisions and artisan touches along the way: fiber colors and textures are sourced from various places, a spinner creates custom yarn, blending the colors as needed, the feathers are knitted or felted into a variety of styles (flat knit, loopy, longer, tighter, dread locks, petals, etc.), then stitchers finally add the feathers and comb. It is the “collective individual artistry of the fabricators that makes the chickens unique.”
The work wall showcases various wool fiber colors, chickens in the making, and inspiration imagery for the collection at hand. Here you can see chickens in various stages of creation: some in their underwear yet to be feathered, a naked chicken yet to be upholstered, and a few who need to be stitched.
It is no surprise that the effort that goes into making these custom, hand-crafted works of art is reflected in the price. The chickens are sold directly to collectors from their website and are also available at several luxury retailers. George, a local lifestyle shop in the Crestwood Shops in Kansas City, is their longest retail relationship of seven years. They also are sold at Garde in Los Angeles and Summerland, CA and more recently at a private showroom in London where their clients are confidential and so “we just assume all of these chickens are going to the queen,” she laughs delightfully. Regardless of where they are sold, there has never been a chicken who has not found a home, and the demand always seems to outweigh the supply.
When coronavirus shut down the country this spring, Sally worried that the demand for bespoke Chicken Footstools might falter. And although several supply chains stopped, their collector’s support did not. “COVID slowed things down but inspired creativity,” Sally tells. They couldn’t get more fiber or bronze, so they had to make do with what they already had in the studio, which happened to be mostly small feet and beaks and lots of colorful fiber. The result was the Fiesta Flock, which was released on Cinco de Mayo, and was a flamboyant, explosion of color featuring playful chickens with names like Little Taco and Little Guac. It was the most successful collection release yet, with the quickest sales they had seen. “I think everybody just needed a little color in their lives” Sally offers. But she doesn’t really seem surprised; she has seen how people love their chickens and has been told many positive stories about the chickens out in the world. “There’s just so much fun that happens around the chickens at every stage, from the fiber people to the makers to the collectors…I hope we can do a better job of sharing those stories because people get such a kick out of them.”
The joyful exuberance that permeates her work is a result of Sally’s gratitude for her collectors and craftspeople and the wonder she has for the chicken and the egg. “I know it sounds a little cheesy, but these chickens spread a lot of joy into the world, so just that simple pursuit is valuable,” she reflects. Each year her business grows, and with over 140 chickens designed so far this year, her 2020 flock is already the biggest yet. In ten years, Sally has grown from an opportunistic one-woman operation to a nebulous and resilient small business with six employees, numerous contract workers, and their own West Plaza storefront studio. Because of Sally’s patience with growth, her humility to accept help from others and to recognize where she needs to let go, her level of craft and service, and the kindness with which leads her efforts, it is no doubt that she will continue to send her flock out to spread joy into the world for years to come.
Sally and her daughter Analou in front of The City Girl Farm studio at 1407 W 45th Street in the West Plaza neighborhood.
