hands

quilts

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Denise Carbonell Gallery - 212.979.1613 - email

DENISE CARBONELL- QUILTING IS SOMETHING I'VE done since I was a little girl," says Carbonell. "I like the idea of mak–ing something out of nothing, and the meditative quality. It's an unusual thing to do it today instead of producing things in multiples. What's lacking in the fashion machine is the attitude of 'I'm making this for you' instead of 'I'm making 4,000 of these in India.'" Carbonell also creates dolls and bags and sells them out of her little shop at 154 Stanton Street.

exhibitor                    : Denise Carbonell
Category                    : Home & garden > rugs, tapestries & curtains
product line               : Hand made and hand stitched textiles to be used as tapestries, wall hangings, quilts, baby coverlets or couch throws. All pieces are strictly one of a kind

buisness profile

The tradition of hand made tapestry gets a downtown twist in Denise Carbonell's extraordinary body of work. A veteren New York designer, editor, artist and restauranteur, Carbonelt has been stitching quilts in her spare time for the last 15 years. What is now an artistic passion started as a way to recycle the fabrics that accumulated during her years as a clothing designer. These exotic modem masterpieces are wildly rich in their combination of colors and materials. Using solid and patterned silks, satins, brocades, velvets, wools and linens, she fashions color-themed textiles in a skillful play between randomness and symmetry. Each piece is entirely made by one person, and totally made with hand stitching. Custom orders are welcome. Prices are from $45 to $65 per square foot.

CITY CRAFTSMAN -
Denise Carbonell Fifteen years ago, designer Denise Carbonell was creating cuts and styles for Perry Ellis and Barneys New York. Then,after doing her fair share of time in the garment industry she called it quits, but not at the risk "of surrendering her original passion - sewing. Carbonell, who taught herself to sew when she moved to New York 20 years ago, would scour thrift stores and fabric outlets for uniquely patterned textiles and odd bits of interesting material. Today her love of textiles and sewing has morphed into the newly revived
art of quilt-making. Yes, in true Martha style, quilts (and making them} are Carbonell was hand-stitching her beauties long
before quilt fairs started to get the buzz of a hot gallery opening. Anyone who has poked around antique shops {or a Company .Store catalog) can envjsiorrthe muJticploped muitipattened squares of fabric painstakingly sewn together in a myriad of designs, but Carbonell's creations are not so homespun as the old country house kinds. Hers are vibrant, velvety, imperfect and sensual, and her store is a showcase for her crafts, in addition to other vintage clothing, housewares, and furniture finds. Nesting is fun. And with a quilt like Carbonell's, it's Quilts from $250 - $3,000.-CB 154 Stanton Street; (212) 979-1613.

CARBONELL:
Denise Carbonell
home & garden > rugs, tapestries & cart a ins Hand made and hand stitched textiles to be used as tapestries, wall hangings, quilts, baby coverlets or couch throws. All pieces are strictly one of a kind

business profile
The tradition of hand made tapestry gets a downtown twist in Denise Carbonell's extraordinary body of work. A veteren New York designer, editor, artist and restauranteur, Carbonell has been stitching quilts in her spare time for the last 15 years. What is now an artistic passion started as a way to recycle the fabrics that accumulated during her years as a clothing designer. These exotic modern masterpieces are wildly rich in their combination of colors and materials. Using soiid and patterned silks, satins, brocades, velvets, wools and linens, she fashions color-themed textiles in a skillful play between randomness and symmetry. Each piece is entirely made by one person, and totally made with hand stitching. Custom orders are welcome. Prices are from $45 to $65 per square foot.

Denise Carbonell
USA
154 Stanton Street New York, NY 10002
(+1)212-979-1613

hands

quilts

animals

mobiles

father, who played dominoes with his friends on

By ELAINE LOUIE                                     concrete tables embedded in the sidewalk, she
loves being on the street. In the summer, some-

N 1984, Denise Carbonell, an artist and quilt                                                      _{one wiiJ pul! out a grill} ^ _{set up a} barbecue,

maker, paid $340,000, then a high price, for a                            "Usually roast pork," she said. "Someone will

two-story lBfiO's building at 154 Stanton Street                             ask what's happening that night, and another

on the Lower East Side. She cobbled together a                                                                     will say, 'Let's cook.' "

$70,000 down payment by borrowing $1,000 each                                 When she moved into the building, at the

from her mother, a brother and seven friends                                 corner of Suffolk Street, the loftlike space was

and by taking out a loan. Then she remade her                                  dark with grime. She stripped the floors, and

new home in the luminous col-                                                                                    sanded and painted them in a

ors of her native Miami.                                                                                                blond-on-blond stripe. In her

Last May, Henry Davis, a ^^^™^™                                                                     living area, which was a grub-
real estate broker with Ash- .                                                                                   , by earth color, she painted one
forth Warburg Associates, J\ flCW generation wall pumpkin, another curry,
told her that the property was r* j •                                                                * * • ^ant* ^^urmsne(' ^{Ine room w}i^tn
worth $1.3 million. He could IinOS inspiration                                   midcentury-modern classics,
find a buyer. Was she interest-                                                                                             The kitchen back-splash
ed? Her answer was no.              On LotlO    S StTCetS.      ^naci beige tiles. "1 couldn't

"First   I   said,   'Oh,   my                                                                                        take the color," she said, "and

God,'"   she   said.   "1   had                      —_p>                                 I couldn't afford to replace

friends call me and say, 'Are                                                                                           them."  So, she painted the

you crazy? Get out of there!'                                                                                          tiles a wild checkerboard of

Then I realized I didn't want to go anywhere. I                                              red, yellow, orange, blue and green,

love my neighborhood. 1 love my place."                                            Metal-framed glass doors divide the living

Bit by bit, Ms. Carbonell, 44, has converted the                          area from the bedroom. Ms. Carbonell bought

3,200-square-foot property with a tiny budget                            sheets of plastic film in red, orange and pink, cut

(110,000 over 15 years) but with witty improvisa-                       rectangles to fit the glass panels and stuck them

tion. The first floor, which had housed a men's                                to the glass. "It's the low-cost decorating solu-

haberdashery, is now a shop where she sells her                            tion," she said. "Redo your room for 79 cents."

handmade quilts as well as vintage clothes and                                As for the occasional cockroach or water bug

furniture, and her home is on the second. There,                             that loiters in her home, she is delighted to see

the wails glow the colors of sunrises and sunsets                          that, relatively speaking, they are pint-size crea-

— bursts of pink-yellow and pink-red.                                                 tures.  "They're bigger in  Florida," she said.

Michele Rondelli, the executive vice president                             "Down there, the cockroaches are two inches

and a designer at Carnegie Fabrics in Manhat-                                      long — and when you hit them, they fly!"

tan, pays $2,000 a month for an 8OO-square-foot                          Three years ago, Mr. Rondelli was the first to

apartment at 203 Rivington Street, at the corner                         sign a lease in his building, a former elementary

of Ridge Street. He has transformed a boring box                       school built in 1905, now housing 71 apartments,

into a spare yet exotic home. Mr. Rondelli, 35,                               His place, which has two bedrooms, was plain

grew up in what he calls "neat and tidy" Bern,                         but had 14-foot ceilings. He bought four-foot-wide

Switzerland, but prefers the Lower East Side to                               sheets of Masonite, painted half of them black

any other place in the city. "The creativity," he                           and the others white, sealed them with polyure-

said. "The shops. The multiculture."                                                 thane and taped them to the living-room floor.

Today, the neighborhood is home to a new                                     "The big stripes give another dimension," he

generation of artists. They like the clatter of                                             said. "The room becomes much bigger."

languages — Spanish, Chinese, a smattering of                                  In a bedroom, he asked Ed Rollins and Chris

Yiddish. They like the fashion. Xuly Bet's recy-                                  Isles, who own Pintura Studio, a decorative

cled, inside-out attire. Vintage clothes waiting                                   painting company in Manhattan, to create an

for second lives. Barbecue on the street. Noise.                                 Indian  tea room  like one  he had  seen  in  a

Ms. Carbonell has found here what she knew                         photograph. They stenciled a tiny gold pattern on

on downtown Miami's Eighth Street (or Calle                              red silk panels and hung them, with Velcro, floor

Ocho), which in the 1960's and 70's was a poor                               to ceiling. Mr. Rondelli wrapped a futon in red

neighborhood and where she was one of six                                        silk and covered the floor with red sisal. The

children of a Cuban-American father, a doctor,                              ceiling is a soothing white. Cooled by a ceiling

and an American mother, a nurse. Like her                                                        fan, the room is like a tiny temple.

ENEMENTS, yes. Luxury housing? It's not what leaps to mind about the Lower East Side. But a loft-style condominium at 18 Orchard Street, near Canal, sold recently for $1.1 million in a bidding war that surprised tv.m Ihedwcfloperfi: Four smaller uirts in the warehouse building sold in the high SSua^OO's. At 130 Orchard Street, the Beckenstein Home Fabrics building, still cheek by jowl with discount men's suit stores and sidewalk leather-jacket merchants, is being converted into rental apartments priced as high as $3,000 a month for a 450-square-foot studio.

in the last year, residential redevelopment has been undertaken in 25 percent of the 230 commercial or mixed-use buildings at the heart of the neighborhood, according to the Lower East Side Business Improvement District.

Orchard Street, with its narrow grove of grim tene–ments, hasn't seen Fruit this sweet since it was cut through an orchard in the 18th century, on Lt. Gov. James De Lan-cey's 340-acre farm.

By 1903, with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, one square block of Orchard Street between De-lancey and Broorae Streets was said to be the most crowd–ed place on earth. "My grand–parents, forced to settle here, couldn't wait to get out," said Mark Federman, 54, the third-generation owner of Russ & Daughters, a smoked fish business started in a pushcart on Orchard Street.

Now, people are fighting
to get in. If they can afford to.
Pushed south and east by
rising "uptown" prices in the
East Village and SoHo, and
pulled by the magnet of a
thriving bar and boutique
scene, young professionals are
looking to LoHo, as real estate
agents have re-named the
stretch of the Lower East Side
between East Houston and Ca–
 nal Streets and Forsyth and
ioinr«cBMiorihs[j(!»Voriinmo(<i»ivEuidiop)                            Clinton Streets. It is fashion's

«m«r *«*»...«   EWe                          "^nSe of generation,

Carbonell, among the new generation of                               ^later. ^my ^s want to live

down here," said Mr. Feder-

LoHo residents, whose home, top,                                          man, whose store has been at

179 East Houston Street for 7Q

reflects the area's vitality. Page 7.                                         _years.  "They _{thjlilc it}'_s the

coolest neighborhood."

A six-story hotel is on the drafting board for a lot at East Houston and Forsyth Streets; another hotel is being developed four blocks away.

At 175 Broadway, the Jewish Daily Forward Building, built in 1912 for the Yiddish-language Socialist newspaper, is also being converted into condominiums. The World War I-era Sunshine Theater at 139-43 East Houston Street, an early cinema and later a Yiddish vaudeville hall, is reopening this summer as a $8 million, five-screen art-film cineplex.

"There's a lot of energy and excitement there," said Doug Freed, vice president of Landmark Theater Corporation, the nation's largest art-house chain, which is developing the site for its first theater in New York,

Even Ratner's, a Delancey Street landmark since 1905, is renovating. Its Lansky Lounge, popular with the newer club crowd, is expanding, at the exptnse of the dairy kosher dining room. "The lounge caters more to the neighborhood now," said Robert Harmatz, its third-generation owner, "The Ratner's part — most of those customers have moved away."

To meet the demand for renovated apartments, 19th-century tenements, sealed over the last 50 years by landlords whose rents couldn't compete with the cost of successive building code requirements like fire-proofing and indoor toilets, are being reopened. In 1978, Mr. Federman let the apartments above his store become vacant. Now, he is renovating them as rentals. "My son's wailing for me to finish the building," Mr. Federman said. "Real estate in the neighborhood has gone through the

Today, the coddled masses are yearning to move in.

wholesale renovation   The Beckenstein Home Fabrics building at 130 Orchard Street, top, is being converted into rental apartments with $3,000 studios. Above, business aa usual in the discount district at street level, while