The Homefront: Artist Keith Martine Fills His Home With Friends’ Works
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An artist is more than just the works in the medium they’ve chosen, as photographer Keith Martine proves. They beautify every environment they encounter, they construct in situ—as he does for his series Plant Passenger, stuffing classic cars with protruding plants—and then recompose those works into images that can live on in perpetuity. Perhaps most importantly, an artist works to help other artists; knowing that community is a powerful force in the art world.
Similarly, at home, Martine’s practices are reflected in his space. His studio apartment a few blocks south of Union Square feels light, airy, and well rounded. Upon closer inspection though, the things he’s surrounded himself with on a daily basis each are reminders and channels to friends and fellow artists and makers: a coffee table designed by an old roommate, vases from a sculptor friend, and prints from artists at Apostrophe Gallery—a start-up digital gallery created to support and expand the reach of rising talents in the art world.
Martine gave SPY a tour of his home to highlight some of his favorite pieces he uses every day.
Schwinn Bicycle
The bike was my late father’s, in his probably late 30s, early-to-late 30s. And during COVID, I was biking around everywhere. That is probably the best way to experience New York, without any cars on the street or without any human or car traffic at all. And I was using Citibike a lot. It just wasn’t doing it for me, I realized how heavy the bikes were, and how slow they were. And so I was looking online one day, and thought I should buy a used bike. Then, I thought, “This is just, this is ridiculous.” Like, there’s bikes at my home in New Jersey. So I called my mom up and she said, “You still have your dad’s.” I took it to a local repair shop, got it all tuned up and ready to go, and brought it back to New York. And honestly, that changed my life. The ability to get around so easily and so quickly on something that’s so nimble, and so lightweight is fantastic. Even back then the technology they had was fantastic and with minor tweaks on it, everything is working great. Yeah, they just don’t build them like they used to.
Pentax 6×7
I was looking for a medium format camera maybe for a month to a year. I was thinking about getting a Pentax. I spent a ton of time looking online in Japan and sending other photographers I knew. One of my buddies was like, “Listen man, I brought this up before, you really should go with someone local. My boy has one and he’s trying to sell it.” His friend said, “Listen, you don’t like this camera for whatever reason, it doesn’t work out for you, I’ll buy it back from you for the same price. And so I bought it and have not looked back since. It’s definitely a beast, the tank probably weighs like 10 to 15 pounds. And that shutter is like a gunshot. But the photo quality, the color gamut on that thing, is next level. So I don’t think I’ll ever find something better than that.
Bedside Table Books
The Creative Act by Rick Rubin
The Creative Act, by Rick Rubin, is a wonderful book by the producing genius himself. It helps me to articulate and understand my creative process a bit better.
Light Bringer Red Rising Novel
My best friend and I loved reading the Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings series, but afterwards struggled to find anything of the same caliber. Pierce Brown reinstilled our fantasy imaginations with a futuristic dystopian twist with the Red Rising saga. This is book 6 of the 7-part series that just came out.
Mirohaus Vases
One of my closest friends and his wife started Mirohaus, a home design studio with original goods and three residential experiences in Palm Springs and Joshua Tree in California. After designing the homes, they realized the products in the market didn’t quite cut it and decided to start their own home goods line. I loved the simplicity and natural element of the vases. He started creating these and asked me what I would want. I said there wasn’t a lot of space in the apartment. But these vases are amazing. They’re very different from anything I’ve seen.
Coffee Table by Thislexik
This is one of my favorite coffee tables. It’s fantastic for book storage and a footrest. The guy who made it was one of my original roommates, way back when. We were introduced through my other friend who does the vases. He’s always had this creative side to him. And yeah, his company is called Thislexik. He still does have units available. That design is fantastic. And it’s pretty ergonomic with the way that it’s shaped. So that you could actually easily rest your feet in there pretty comfortably, which is kind of cool.
Cesca Chairs
I got these from IME Vintage. I sit in them every day. These are my work-from-home chairs.
Skincare by Dune
My friend has this skincare brand called Dune. I actually learned I should be more careful with my skin and in my life. Every time I’ve gone to the beach, I was putting on just a little sunscreen for, like, an hour max. Then I’d slowly build it up and everything. And I learned through doing, I have to be a little careful with my skin. It’s just the education behind everything that Dune gives is easy to consume. Hopefully, my skin will age better now that I’m using it.
Keep Candles
I discovered this scent in the bathroom of one of my favorite local restaurants, Jolene. Keap’s a Brooklyn-based company with a monthly candle model. They send me a couple every month. It’s the same scent, but they just happened to narrow it to the one I liked.
Apostrophe Gallery Prints
As an artist, I was very tired of the whole “poor artists” trope or “starving artists.” Shannon Bender and I started Apostrophe Gallery to help rising artists. One of the biggest ways that we can help with art connections is through business partnerships, and curation with businesses. If businesses and brands need to get art in their spaces, and most of the time they don’t know where to go besides interior designers, we can help curate and support. What we’d like to do is bring our artists into the fray and curate them, whether it’s originals or prints. In doing so, we’re getting the artist’s name out there, and we’re getting the works out there. Not only for purchase by the brand, but with strategically placed QR codes that are associated with each piece that can then be shopped when someone experiences that work in person.
These are some of my favorite artists in the gallery. Giulia Peyrone’s Mini Sun Chart is an incredible embroidered piece. On the left, Slim Door is by Ella Barnes. The middle one is my own, which is also in the gallery.
Plants
Plants have always been interesting to me. Human design and Mother Nature design is so similar in a lot of ways. Particularly if you look at a lot of major construction and developments. In architectural wonders, you see a lot of the shapes that have already been created in mother nature. One of the reasons that architects do this is because it is similar even though we don’t realize it to something that we’ve already seen in our lives where we’ve been surrounded. By bringing plants into the home, it’s a way of me tying myself back to nature, especially in a place where a lot of times we’re living in shoe boxes, very small spaces, and there’s not much greenery around. By having the ability to bring these seeds of nature, these beautiful, stunning plants into my home, I’m reminded of my childhood and some of the places that I love across the world that are surrounded in greenery.