With a Little Help From my Friends
Crossroads
Great art knows no boundaries, especially in Naples, Florida. Like the CMT Crossroads show, I enjoy pairing up with great talent with different skills then me, swapping stories, exchanging licks and seeing what we come up with! The results are always outstanding and we leave with standing ovations!
This projects crossroad: Queens meets Brooklyn! My pal the great Sean Crosby
Sean & I met in a class many moons ago at The Finishing School in Floral Park NY. We had both been taking classes previously with Ina Marx, but this class was led by her son Robert Marx, a great craftsman and a great guy. Sean and I new many common finishers in the Tri-State area. One was the legendary Howard Zucker, an old-time union painter known for his decorative finishes. We both have roots working with the painters unions, so there are plenty of laughs and stories to go around. Sean is world renowned for his graining and marbling, and a world class portrait & mural artist to boot, a true Rock Star in this industry! Sean came down for a week to do some Trompe-l’oeil on a huge fireplace mantel (featured below). He knocked it out of the park for us and we exchanged some graining licks on our breaks, as well.
Another Rock Star friend, Tim Davis has been a hired gun with Spiegel’s for many years as well. Thou he is an accomplished faux finisher, he is another amazing Trompe-l’oeil artist. One other bond we have is music. Tim and I have collaborated on a few songs. He is also a graduate of the recording engineering school Full Sail University. He is an accomplished pianist, producer and engineer and can be heard on some of our latest original music tracks.
Tim Davis
Come Sail Away! This bathroom is one of my favorite collaborations with Tim Davis.
The drapes, shelf and nautical instruments are all painted to fool the eye, the art of Trompe-l’oeil
Another favorite was this master bathroom we did together. I faux marbled the walls and Tim painted the beautiful mural in the tub niche.
If I had more time, I could talk about many more friends I have collaborated with throughout the years, but this short list would not be complete without my good friend Jeff Fessenden of Jeff Fessenden Studio’s. Jeff is another very musical guy. He is an amazing guitarist and vocalist. I am sure we will be laying down some music tracks one of these days, after all the painting is done of course!
While we were busy working on the ceiling and walls, Jeff came in and painted this beautiful ribbon to put the icing on the cake, I mean room!
These were a few examples of how we collaborate with fellow artisans. Sometimes it’s nice “to get by with a little help from my friends.”
To view more projects and collaborations of Spiegel’s Decorative Finishing Studio, click here.
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