For the past 3 decades, my flooring has been showcased in some of the most exclusive homes, hotels and offices in the country and I have had the good fortune and pleasure to be part of their construction by the architects and designers on the project.
Eileen Gray’s tapis centimetre was imprinted in my mind and I knew that if she could dare to design and produce her rug in the 1920’s then I could launch my ballroom dancing steps in the 80’s.
I later found Andy Warhol had produced diagrams from the same dancing instructions book – with the direction that when the LA MOCA museum displayed the diagram, it had to be on the floor. Stepping Out - Male
I am vigorously carving a rug to go into a W Hotel Seoul I carved and felted the carpet to give it the depth of an abstract painting. Was I inspired by Jackson Pollack’s drip paintings?
After becoming intimately involved with a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Rye, NY I was asked to give a tour of the house to Deborah Berke's Yale Graduate School of Architecture students.
My textiles are part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institute at the Cooper Hewitt Museum
Since the 90’s I have been renovating spaces that I or other people have lived in.
During 2005-07, I worked with an architect to commence the gut renovation of a loft and roof garden in Tribeca, NY owned by a movie actor. Of the various great craftsmen I encountered through the job,P.E. Guerin stands out. Walking through their doors - a nondescript townhouse tucked away in the West Village to see how they have been manufacturing the most exquisite hardware and fixtures (solid gold swan shaped faucets) since the 1800’s.
My goal in renovating not only my own studio apartment in the mid 90's but for any project I take on has been to strip back the rooms to their original proportions and to let the spaces breathe as they were originally intended.
mid 90's Midtown renovation
2013 Sprucing up our mid-90's renovation.
Adding a little more glam to our 2013 update.
2010 Enhancing the existing mid century kitchen - Westchester, NY
Life came full circle when by happenstance I found there was an upcoming retrospective of my Japanese teacher’s work in New York 30 years after I had studied with him. In Sept 2009 I participated in the event by training the docents and then by being invited to become one.
A clip of my interview at the opening of Serizawa's Retrospective at the Japan Society 2009.