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“Town is a giant fucking mess in a approach that makes me really feel turned on creatively each single day,” says Johnny Valentine, a New York Metropolis chainsmith, SoHo loft dweller, and sidewalk head-turner.
Their desk, it appears, isn’t any completely different. Valentine laughs as they watch my eyes widen as I scan the gleaming, silvered junkyard. Scissors, studying glasses, metallic polisher, and a bottle of Advil are nestled within the thick layer of tangled {hardware}. Steel rings, the dimensions of varied cash, sit delicately in scattered dishes. Two desk lamps, one on both finish, level inwards like soccer stadium lights.
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Just like the workspace of any artist, there’s a methodical contact to its chaos. “It’s loopy, however I do know the place every thing is,” they are saying. Valentine pulls open an oak drawer the place 20 silver chains lie on a flattened bandana in neat rows, polished and twinkling.
Valentine’s chains are chunky, but delicate — punk and stylish. They embody the ‘70s and ’80s industrial road fashion of the Ramones’ New York Metropolis, whereas remaining a timeless staple of punk style. Greater than that, they’re crafted with excessive care and thoughtfulness for the individuals taking them residence.
“I do not actually journey previous my four-block radius,” says Valentine. “So it’s so cool that I get to make one thing after which ship it off with somebody.” On any given night time, Valentine’s chains is perhaps glowing on the purple carpet or thumping on the chests of rockers on stage.
Most of their enterprise is from phrase of mouth: neighbors, pals, and artists who’ve noticed Valentine’s hypnotic chains within the wild. The chains are virtually all the time on tour, whether or not it’s with Nile Rodgers, Surfbort’s frontman Dani Miller, Paramore’s touring drummer Joey Mullen, or The Go-Go’s drummer, Gina Schock. Nile Rodgers’ chain even made it to the Queen’s jubilee the place he carried out with Duran Duran, grooving on a white Stratocaster in an ivory swimsuit.
Valentine calls their chains, “armor,” metallic adornments that defend and reinforce one’s sense of id when strolling out into the world. When Valentine steps out into the world of West Broadway, there’s a jovial clinking that follows, layered chains jingling towards one another like wind chimes.
“Jewellery makes me really feel cool and empowered,” Valentine says, pushing the brim of their leather-based biker’s hat up barely, exposing their sizzling pink eyebrows. Valentine wears a turquoise bandana round their neck and cobalt cargo work pants. Their jet black hair is saved in two neat braids that graze their belt. Tattoos poke out of their AC/DC band tee, dancing down their arms all the best way to their fingertips.
“I need all people to really feel robust and funky, however with a softness and sweetness,” says Valentine. The contradictions welded within the chains come from an innate rigidity inside Valentine. Figuring out as non-binary, they cherish the twin spirits of, what they describe as, “robust and tender.” Their craftsmanship is propelled by the identical tenants of the concord present in opposition.
New York Metropolis is the inspiration, main motivator, and the beloved backdrop to Valentine’s profession as an artist. Influenced by each the tangible and intangible components of the town, Valentine recreates city life of their chains. “Some industrial elements of the town can encourage that in a really literal approach. Like the best way a trash can is chained to the pole,” Valentine says. “After which there’s additionally the softer influences, like seeing a movie and wanting to specific the sensation of that.”
Valentine is a serial movie-goer. “I see a film within the theater each single week,” Valentine tells me, explaining that of their residence there aren’t any computer systems (they solely lately put in Wi-Fi). “No matter I have been watching that week influences my chains.” They’re at present on a Midnight Cowboy kick, as seen within the Western neckerchief they’re sporting as we speak. “I got here residence devastated from the film and instantly simply began making stuff to course of it,” they are saying.
Lots of Valentine’s references and poignant cultural milestones are set within the romantic dreamscape of cinema. Rising up in Hannibal, Missouri — the sleepy, Americana city the place lots of the Tom Sawyer books happened — films, books, and music had been the principle supply of aesthetic and inventive fantasy.
Significantly in regard to fashion, films contained a portal into the world of punk style. Fairly in Pink’s iconic hodgepodge working-class styling was pivotal in educating Valentine that dressing effectively didn’t rely on wealth. “I used to be obsessive about Duckie and Iona’s fashion,” Valentine says. “You may make items to create your individual particular fashion which began me on making issues and altering thrift retailer finds.”
The DIY, punk ethos of détourning classic aesthetics spoke to Valentine’s budding id. “I used to be so impressed by the New York punks!” Lifeless Boys, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Johnny Thunders, Ramones, and Blondie had been Valentine’s style icons.
“All the things I learn takes place in New York within the late ‘70s, early ‘80s,” they clarify. “I’m drawn to artwork that’s based mostly on the New York that I believed I used to be shifting to. However after I moved right here, it wasn’t like that anymore.”
When Valentine moved to New York in 2007, they looked for the bustling beatnik neighborhood that they had seen within the films. Valentine started working as a hairstylist at Mudhoney, a salon and punk establishment opened in 1989 by Michael Matula. He was doing everybody’s hair within the ‘90s: L7, Gap, Metallica, Kurt Cobain, Smashing Pumpkins, Weapons N’ Roses, Aerosmith, Megadeth, Radiohead. “Mudhoney was like college for scoundrels,” Valentine explains. “The proper place to study every thing cool. Music books, movie, garments, hair, make-up.”
“I’ve positively fucked round with my look loads. And as a hairstylist, I’ve had each sort of hair,” says Valentine. However they weren’t all the time as unabashed and experimental with their fashion. “I used to be a late bloomer in each sense of the phrase. It took me some time to not be so anxious that I might really determine who I’m,” they clarify.
After graduating highschool, Valentine moved ten minutes south of the Las Vegas strip, subsequent to the Liberace museum. They shortly turned obsessive about the ornate, flamboyant fashion of the pianist, frequenting the museum as their home of worship. Valentine resonated with the contradictions of Liberace’s self-expression: the tensions between masculinity and femininity and the wedding of maximalism and conventional. “His private fashion and self-expression blew my thoughts,” says Valentine. “That’s after I acquired into jewellery and sporting rings on each single finger.”
Over the pandemic, Valentine was in a position to focus extra on their metalsmithing, finally quitting Mudhoney to deal with their jewellery enterprise full-time. “A phrase that usually pops into my head is Liberace’s quote: ‘an excessive amount of of a superb factor is fantastic.’ I repeat that in my head after I’m getting dressed or making a brand new chain,” Valentine says.
Now, Valentine rents the back-facing unit of a pre-war constructing on West Broadway. They maintain two charcoal-colored poodles, Liberace and Ramona, in every arm as they stroll me via their sunny loft. Thick wooden beams stretch throughout the ceiling’s skylight, and Persian rugs and large-scale oil work fill the echoing house. Pat Kaufman, a 94-year-old painter, purchased the whole ground again within the ‘80s when SoHo was much less luxurious boutiques and brunch spots, and extra galleries and artist lofts. As Kaufman heads to Florida for the colder months, she’s grateful that she’s in a position to lease the spot to somebody who is ready to benefit from the Bohemian tradition that continues to be within the constructing. Virtually all the tenants, who’re largely painters and sculptors, purchased entire flooring within the ‘70s when the residences had been desolate areas.
“The truth that individuals on this constructing are nonetheless making artwork each single day and having the ability to discuss to one another about what they’re making, what I’m making, feels just like the New York that I dreamed of as an adolescent,” Valentine says. “Like after I watched fucking Get together Woman after I was younger and felt like, Oh my God, I want I lived in a loft and had neighbors who had been doing cool stuff.”
“I definitely have my neighborhood individuals which might be so cool and I am completely satisfied to see every single day and discuss to them about what they’re doing and making,” says Valentine. “However there’s additionally 100 individuals ready for brunch subsequent door at Sadelle’s, asking if they’ll borrow my canine to take a photograph for Instagram.”
Valentine has cultivated the spirit of the town within the rugged chains that adorn downtown’s coolest denizens. “I really feel like I’ve a bit of previous New York,” Valentine says. “And that feels actually fucking good.”
