January 6–13, 2000

art

Did Rodin Make Giant Watermelons?

Two Tyler grads turn their art training into profit – and potato chip costumes.

by Fern Sternberg

photos by Eddy Palumbo

So you went to art school to study painting or sculpture or linoleum printing. Now what? The demand for full-time sculptors is pretty low and they aren’t exactly handing out painting jobs left and right, unless, of course, it’s house painting you’re into. If you’re like most young artists, you’ll secure a decent-paying, menial job – waiter, coffee jockey – and create in your spare time.

Or, if you’re like Kerry Kato and Steve Binasiewicz, you’ll start your own company.

Kato, 26, and Binasiewicz, 40, are owners of Kitchen Sink Fabrications, a two-year-old North Philadelphia company that creates sculptural products for promotion, entertainment and educational purposes.

Two Tyler Art School graduates – she in ’97, he in ’81 – Kato and Binasiewicz met in 1997 while putting some of their art skills to use in a local scene shop making props and set pieces for use in TV commercials and department store displays. After working in the scenic industry for a while, they realized they could do what this company was doing on their own – and do it better.

While working full-time at the scene shop they took a few jobs on the side to see if they were right. In November 1997, through a friend of Binasiewicz, they snagged their first project: a 6-foot by 8-foot NBA sign that read "I Love This Game," used to promote the NBA All-Stars. At the time, they worked out of Binasiewicz’s South Philly home: The kitchen table served as the finance department, and carving and carpentry took place in the basement. Mold making was done at Kato’s Old City apartment. Binasiewicz would finish one part of an object, Kato the other, and then they’d put it all together in Binasiewicz’s living room.

Based on the success of the NBA project they were hired to do several other small jobs. By this time the two had come up with a name for their company – Kitchen Sink Fabrications, because up until then they’d created everything but – and began to send out fliers to museums, art departments and advertising agencies soliciting work. When they were commissioned to do the Barnyard Babies exhibit for the Please Touch Museum in May 1998, their first big project, the two decided to quit their day jobs, find their own space and fully commit to their cause.

Their new headquarters is a 6,000-square-foot space in North Philadelphia. The two spend about 10 hours a day, six days a week at the studio, which is fully equipped with a special fume area where any potentially toxic fumes can be isolated from other work areas – plenty of room to saw, drill, carve, sculpt and more. Plus there’s a separate kitchen area and a full bathroom – both ideal for people who spend long hours creating – and an office space.

	People always ask about the Rosie O’Donnell M&M desk. "It’s a blessing and a curse," says Kato, who hopes never to make candy furniture again.

KS isn’t alone in its North Philly workshop. The building is occupied by several other urban entrepreneurs including Frisk, an underthings and loungewear company, custom cabinetmakers Paul and David Shandelman, and jewelry makers (and the owners of the building) Steve Forde and David Forlano. Many of the building’s occupants, including KS, have utilized the Empowerment Zone to start their businesses. The federal program provides rent rebates, financial and business support and employees from the Welfare to Work program in exchange for locating a business in one of the zones. In addition, KS was just awarded $1,000 as part of the "Zone 2000 Plan," a business plan competition sponsored by the Philadelphia Empowerment Zone.

But the sculptural business isn’t all gritty work and life-threatening fumes. Though KS takes it very seriously, it’s a pretty fun job. Kato, a perky brunette with long locks and a big smile, laughs when she thinks of calling a meeting about things like snack food costumes for a Herr’s commercial. "It’s funny taking potato chip costumes seriously," she says. Though Binasiewicz is older and more earnest – he chain-smokes and rarely cracks a smile – it’s clear that he too is having a good time making larger-than-life toys for adult clients.

KS had done about 10 jobs for a New York-based production company called The Art Department when the company contracted them to create the now-infamous M&M desk for The Rosie O’Donnell Show. Last spring, Rosie used a different theme desk each day as a celebration of having reached her 500th episode in February. M&M decided to get in on the publicity by sending her a desk covered with the hard candies, and gave KS seven days to turn the custom-colored candies into a mosaic of Rosie’s likeness. It took three days to lay the 35,000 m-side-up candies on individual panels, another three days for the special clear coating to dry, to make the desk itself and attach the panels. Rosie barely mentioned the desk on the May 26 show, but it will be forever attached to KS. Kato says people always ask about the desk, as if that’s the only thing they’ve done. "It’s a blessing and a curse," says Kato, who hopes never to make candy furniture again.

Rosie isn’t the only celebrity KS has created for. In January of 1999 they were hired by local designers Marc Brodzik and Robert Holtzman to make an exterior sign for filmmaker Kevin Smith’s comic book store, Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash, in Red Bank, NJ (Brodzik and Holtzman designed the store’s interior). The finished product is a humorous depiction of Jay and Bob (recurring characters in Smith’s films from Clerks onward), hand-carved from sign foam.

Sometimes the strangest jobs are their favorites, says Kato. Prime example: SOS pad puppets.

	A is for…: Kitchen Sink Fabrications owners Kato (top) and Binasiewicz with an apple mold.

KS was asked to create puppets out of SOS pads for a commercial where a homemaker does a puppet show with the pot scrubbers. All the agency wanted was an SOS with three holes – one for each eye and a mouth. Sounds simple, but it took Kato five days to perfect the puppets. Once she started poking holes in the SOS, the blue soap flaked off and the holes closed up. The solution: Kato made a cast flexible polyurethane foam face with a support structure beneath the eyeholes to keep them open, then glued on steel wool and painted it the perfect blue. The end result looked so much like an SOS that the actress on the set didn’t understand why Binasiewicz kept taking them back after each take. Binasiewicz remembers the actress kept saying, "What’s the big deal? They’re just SOS pads." Little did she know.

Kato and Binasiewicz don’t do it all by themselves. They secure the projects and then hire people to help them do what they can’t. For example, they couldn’t possibly lay 70,000 Starburst candies to create a 16-foot by 6-foot watermelon by themselves, so last June they brought in a few artists to spend 60 hours painstakingly gluing each candy into place.

Making props and set pieces isn’t exactly art, but neither Kato nor Binasiewicz seems bothered. Binasiewicz still makes found-object sculptures in his spare time, although he hasn’t shown his work in more than 10 years. Kato says she doesn’t mind not doing "art." While jewelry making was her major at Tyler, she’s not really into it anymore. KS fulfills her artistic needs now (although she insists what she really wants to do is "invent something").

Down the road, says Binasiewicz, they would like to nurture two or three people they can trust, enabling them to take on more projects at one time. What they don’t want is to become so big that they no longer touch their projects; they always want to be hands-on. For now, things are going well. They’ve been making a living – and a profit – from the business since the beginning.

Last week Kato and Binasiewicz made hand and foot molds of his newborn daughter, Mary. Then Kato, along with Binasiewicz’s wife, Caryn Hunt, used the molds to make little chocolate hands and feet for family and friends. Both agree: While building fantasies for others is fun, getting to make your own toys is one of the best parts of the business.

Kitchen Sink Fabrications, 1714b N. Mascher St., 215-426-0858.