Parleying with Patrick Parrish
Patrick shares insights on his journey, inspirations, and the unexpected lessons learned through fatherhood.
Patrick Parrish is a gallery owner in New York City, celebrated for his keen eye for unconventional, boundary-pushing art and design. His eponymous gallery showcases a mix of contemporary art, vintage design, and rare objects, highlighting his passion for merging the worlds of craft and innovation. With a career rooted in championing emerging artists and unique aesthetics, Patrick has become a vital figure in the modern art and design community. He was responsible for mondo-blogo blogspot circa 2010-2016, which is an amazing resource for vintage design AND miraculously still up, and also wrote The Hunt: Navigating the Worlds of Art and Design.
I first met Patrick and his wife at our kids’ kindergarten meet-and-greet right before the first full covid school year. We immediately connected over shared interests, and coincidentally, our sons have become close friends over the years.
Patrick recently invited me to visit his new studio in the Brooklyn Navy Yard to hang with him and his son, Clyde. Since Clyde is an OG member of Artclub, it’s fun seeing the creative environment that inspires him. Like his dad, Clyde is a wealth of knowledge and very into collecting. He happily showed me every sneaker in his collection while I looked through Patrick’s massive, even more impressive library. (He’s parting with some rare mags on eBay right now!)
Below are some of the photos I took and part of our conversation from a very enjoyable afternoon. I hope you enjoy as well.
How do we know each other?
We met through our kids, but our paths in New York were pretty close, and they never overlapped until the last couple of years. It’s been fun to see the connections and shared friends come up as we have grown closer and started hanging out with our boys more.
How old is your son, Clyde?
Clyde Wooley Parrish is eight and three-quarters!
Tell us about yourself. Favorite project? Current project?
I just closed Patrick Parrish Gallery, my gallery of 25 years, and recently opened a studio in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. I’m unsure what my next move is, but I am ready for the change.
How did you get into what you’re doing now?
I’ve always been attracted to old things and collecting those things; I had the typical collections of coins, stamps, and rocks, but I moved on to almost anything that my eye was drawn to, even snakes and spiders when I was young!
Once I got to college, I got a job waiting tables at the hottest restaurant in town and suddenly had some extra cash, which allowed me to start thrifting and antiquing. Around that same time, I saw The Machine Age in America show at the newly built High Museum in my birth town of Atlanta, Georgia and was blown away, not only by the amazing Machine Age objects in the exhibition but also by the Post-Modern museum design by Richard Meier. This was the first time I had been exposed to cutting-edge architecture & design, and it was a profound experience that I still carry with me to this day.
Who inspired you as a child?
My maternal grandfather, who was an architect and photographer, was a big inspiration, as was my dad’s older brother, who taught me about cars, stereos, and good food, not to mention fishing.
Where do you look to be inspired? Is it the same as before you became a parent?
I’m into printed matter, books, magazines, ephemera, and contemporary stuff, but especially vintage. I think I try to look at things with an 8-year-old’s eye, which is fresh, very curious, and enthusiastic to the point of excitement! As we get older, and boy oh boy am I old, I think we can get jaded and lose that fresh perspective, and Clyde has definitely helped me go back to a time when I did get excited about the little things and regather that ability to seek out knowledge, however you can get it.
What’s something you did before becoming a parent that would be challenging to do now?
We’ve been pretty lucky, as we have amazing help taking care of Clyde, so he hasn’t cramped our style very much. The only place it does factor in is traveling with my wife for work. We used to be at the same art and design events for work in Miami, San Francisco, Switzerland, and London, but now, because Clyde is in school, only one of us can go. This is a drag, but it is easily forgotten when spending solo time with Clyde, which is a blessing.
What are some of the things you enjoy doing together as a family and one-on-one? Are they the same things you did when you were a child? What was your favorite thing to do as a child?
We really enjoy watching movies at home as a family, eating out is also something we enjoy, and traveling Upstate to stay with Clyde’s “Guncles,” Mark & Dwayne. Clyde has gotten good at fishing this summer, and doing that with him on the Cape was fun. It brought back great memories of fishing with my dad when I was the same age.
My favorite things to do as a child were fishing, running, and collecting. Clyde hasn’t gotten into running yet, but his mom recently ran the NYC Marathon, so I bet he will catch the bug sometime in the future, maybe in middle school or high school.
What’s something you learned from Clyde?
How to be kinder, more patient, and more empathetic to the adults in my life.
What is Clyde obsessed with right now?
Clyde is OBSESSED with exotic cars at the moment. Next would come technology and hacking, then sneakers and fashion. It’s so much fun to see him dive into something that fascinates him and really research it. Things change quickly, though. Last year, he was an expert on Pokemon, and now he barely mentions it. Same with Lego, robots, knights, and ninjas.
What is one place you would love to show Clyde?
Japan! It’s number one on our list, but it might be a while before we get there.
What’s one of your favorite people, places, or things that is no longer around?
We really miss the Clinton Hill restaurant Mekelburg’s. It was our weekly go-to for casual dining, and it was so great for Clyde, as he could run around and chat with people, which he was prone to do from a very early age. As soon as he was talking, he was chatting, and all the other people in the restaurant always seemed more interesting to him than his Mom and Dad!
What’s something you hope is different for Clyde than when you were his age?
I think Clyde is very privileged to grow up in an amazing city with exposure to so many different cultures, religions, and skin colors. This and the changing attitudes to people’s sexual and identity politics, this broad acceptance (at least here in New York City), will be with him for the rest of his life, and it is not something I really had outside of my own home growing up in the Deep South in the 1970s and 80s.
What’s the last great book you read? Are you reading anything at the moment?
I really enjoyed William Gibson’s Neuromancer recently. I was only about 40 years late to that party, but I’m glad I finally got there! Currently, I am reading a book about the infamous art dealer who recently died, Andrew Crispo. It is a fascinating and unbelievable look into the supremely twisted side of the art world of the 1980s.
What’s your weren’t favorite book right now?
Clyde just finished his last Assassination Classroom from the 21-volume set by Yusei Matsui. He was bummed there weren’t anymore, but I am sure he will find something cool to get into pretty fast.
A question worth asking:
How can I improve myself today? What can I learn today? How can I be kind and generous to my family, friends, and even strangers every day? (That’s three, Patrick.)
A quote worth repeating:
“If it doesn’t make dollars, it doesn’t make sense,” and I’m only halfway kidding here!
A piece of advice worth passing on:
“Keep your mouth shut.” It sounds a little harsh, but this can apply very well to so many aspects of your life. I think you can learn much more by listening than you can by talking. Also, information is power, and there is no need to give it away for free all the time!
Tell us of a rabbit hole you recently fell into.
Native American pottery and Kachina dolls from the turn of the century through the 1930s.
Share any five links:
patrickparrish.com - My website.
wright20.com - My last auction at my favorite auction house, Wright20, in Chicago.
beauglazier.com - My former studio director’s fun site.
bigassmessage.com - An oldie but a goodie!
hodinkee.com - For all things watches, old and new.
Thanks, Patrick and Clyde, for inviting me into your space! I also thank Alex for always being awesome, even though she wasn’t around this time.
And thank you all for reading this all the way to the end. Don’t you feel good? You should.
See you all again soon.
Thomas