February 24-March 2, 2005

cover story

Treasures from the Trash

Talking shop with junk resuscitator Nava Lubelski.

by Interview by Lori Hill

Shabby Chic is often shabby frou-frou and Real Simple can be real boring. Enter the starving artist. More specifically, Nava Lubelski, author of The Starving Artist's Way: Easy Projects for Low-Budget Living (Three Rivers Press, 276 pp., $14). The book is a witty, lighthearted and easy-to-follow guide to making your home fun and functional on a threadbare budget. Lubelski is an artist herself; the New York-based painter and collagist was art director for the 2003 documentary Capturing the Friedmans. In the book, she suggests projects for all aspects of the bohemian aesthete lifestyle, from food (Wonder Bread pierogies) to clothing (slippers made out of old sweaters) to cosmetics (salad-dressing skin cleanser). But her home improvement and design projects really impress. In Lubelski's world, pipes and flanges become a towel rack; plastic laundry detergent bottles turn into sconces; chewed gum makes a nifty marbleized tabletop. The writing, too, is refreshing. Her warm sense of humor about the art world dovetails with the accessible how-tos: She'll drop the name of minimalist sculptor Donald Judd in the middle of instructions for making a shelf from an oven rack. She also provides sidebars on artists' or art movements' relevance to the project at hand. City Paper asked her about her Dumpster-diving aesthetic.

City Paper: As an artist yourself, did you find you were taking on DIY projects anyway?
Nava Lubelski: I grew up in an industrial neighborhood in New York where bits and pieces of factory leftovers were available to be scavenged, so the idea of inventing things out of what I can find has always been there for me. It's what I did as a kid instead of building tree forts or playing with dolls. Then in my 20s, when I wasn't making much money since I was trying to work as little as possible to have time and energy for art-making, it just happened that I'd see a broken chair on the street and think, "What would it take to make that into something new?" I've always had Martha Stewart-type instincts. I like to cook and make things for my home, but I've also always been compulsive about reusing things, cautious about spending (I'm a first-generation American, after all) and my aesthetic was distinctly more pop and more punk than Martha's, and certainly "artier." My friends who were artists tended to be similar. We are all, by definition, people who like to make things and who know how to make things. At some point it occurred to me that everybody knows the stereotype of the artist who whips up magnificent feasts out of nothing in their quirky, cool home, but not everybody knows how to do that themselves.

CP: Why do you think so many renters (and homeowners) are intent on shopping at places like Ikea when they could make something similar, and more fun, themselves?
NL: Well, "homemade" has traditionally been associated with a folksy or country look, so the idea of making something slick, pop or contemporary yourself is new for a lot of people. Also, I think people who aren't confident about making things can feel afraid of crossing the line from "cool and original" into "weird" so they cut their losses and go to Ikea. " There's nothing wrong with crossing the line into "weird" some of the time.

CP: How did you test the projects?
NL: I spent a few months on R and D, but many of the projects were things I'd made already, so it was just a question of writing down instructions, or making them one more time to think about how to describe the process to somebody.

CP: Do any of the projects grace your home?
NL: Oh, sure. The Pop Art Tomato Table, for example, is something I invented a long time ago, the Modular Branching Light, yeah, lots of them are things I have.

CP: Which came first, the materials or the idea for the end product? Were you looking at a bunch of old cassette tapes and thought, "I should do something with those"?
NL: In that case, yeah, I looked at a box of cassette tapes and thought "what can I make with these?" and eventually settled on the doorway curtain as the best result for the least effort. " With the Rows of Ducks Candles it was the opposite. I wanted to make recycled candles, and I tried all kinds of things to see what was both quirky and common but also easy to use as a mold before deciding on the rubber duck.

CP: Do you have a favorite design in the book?
NL: I love the Op Art Decorating idea of painting "paint sample" stripes on a wall and the Arsonist's Tablecloths of iron burn designs, a riff on artist Willie Cole's work. The Conceptual Art Regifting may be my favorite project, but since it's "conceptual art," there's actually nothing to make and not really any project.

CP: Do you constantly come up with new ideas to reuse old materials?
NL: I have to admit I have a touch of compulsion about figuring out how to reuse something. Even my artwork is about the idea of repair. I find the idea of something being "broken" or "useless" to be a creative spur and I immediately want to respond and solve the puzzle.

CP: Are you getting good at coming up with ideas for projects on the spot? For example, right now I'm looking at some old Tupperware-like containers, a broken umbrella and a pile of old silverware. Any suggestions?
NL: I would make hanging baskets with the Tupperware on chains, one hanging below the next, I think. I'd have to see the shapes to be sure it would look good. I've thought a lot about broken umbrellas, actually. I once knew a guy who made beautiful metal flowers out of umbrella spokes and empty soda cans. My instinct would be to rip the fabric out and wire a few old umbrellas into an umbrella stand. And I always thought an umbrella would make a great chandelier, though I haven't sat down and worked out the mechanics of it yet. Old spoons can hold candles. My dad has a bunch with the handles set into small holes in the wall and a candle set into the bowl of the spoon — they are very beautiful.

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Make The Pop Art Tomato Table

(Excerpted with permission from The Starving Artist's Way)

You'll need:

• 1 1/4-inch-thick square of red acrylic, 16 inches on each side, for top
• 1 1/8-inch-thick square of clear acrylic, 8 inches on each side, for base
• 1 24-inch-long clear acrylic tube, 3 inches in diameter
• 10 fake plastic tomatoes or other fruit to fit in tube
• clear-drying epoxy
• Q-tip

What you do:

Making the table is incredibly easy once you have gathered your materials. Wipe clean the inside of your clear tube and then glue it, centered, onto the square base. You'll find the center by measuring the base diagonally from corner to corner and marking the midpoint of the lines. Then measure perpendicular to this line, bisecting the opposite corners, and find the midpoint again. Make a tiny mark with a grease pencil or bit of soap; this is your center. Position your acrylic tube so it is exactly surrounding this center point. Take a Q-tip saturated with the glue and press into the seam where the tube meets the flat base, inching around the tube and resaturating the Q-tip with glue when needed. Allow this to dry undisturbed for at least 10 minutes (or according to the glue's directions).

Stack the tomatoes in the tube or as needed to fill up. This part of the table will resemble a piece by Arman, with its items all crammed in. You can also fill the tube with other objects, but the tomatoes are particularly nice because if you get the correct size tubing they will stack very neatly, one on top of the other.

Place the tabletop facedown on your work surface, and find the center again. Place the tube and base upside down onto the center mark. Make sure the sides of the base are squared with the sides of the top. Glue cylinder to the top and allow it to dry.

Flip over the table onto its base and admire it. Yup, that's good.