![]() ![]() “We are on third- and possibly fourth-generation Deadheads now,” says David Gans of Oakland, ponytailed co-author of an oral history of the band, due this fall. in Menlo Park.Īll five shows are sold out, and in either place, Santa Clara or Chicago, it’s possible that tribes of Gen Y in tie-dye will outnumber the “Touch of Grey.” Then the band will head to Chicago for three more shows before calling it quits, 50 years after they formed at Magoo’s Pizza at 639 Santa Cruz Ave. “They’re always telling us how good they feel when they come into the store.Many of them will be here this week, hanging in the Haight, and in VW buses breaking down on the road to Santa Clara, where the “core four” of original Grateful Dead members will play two shows at Levi’s Stadium on Saturday and next Sunday. “People come in here, and they’re so open-minded,” Tom tells me. They marvel that something as fun and as simple as tie dye can create such a sacred space for such a wide variety of people. Still, it appears that the two brothers feel most at home under the fluorescent lights at Starhawk Design Studio, candles burning. Not only have they kept their store awash with their prismatic designs, but they’ve also created banners for High Times, as well as panels for MoMA PS1, sweeping bursts of rainbow colors that served as the backdrops for stage performances this past summer. Starhawk often works on the sales floor, in a little artist’s nook they’ve set up for him, and if you walk by at night, after store hours you can often see him there, still creating. They each breathe distinctive life into the business: Starhawk whips up custom designs, airbrushing everything from dolphins to peace signs to Elmo onto shirts, hoodies and onesies, while Tom does the actual tie-dyeing. To watch the brothers mill around the Starhawk Design Studio is to watch two very different energies sizzle and play in the warm space. “We set up shop here in Greenpoint and I just feel watered all the time.” “Everyone here is creating something all the time–nobody’s walking around in circles. ![]() “I’ve lived in a lot of places, but I love the energy of New York,” Starhawk tells me as he shows a pair of customers a gorgeous singing bowl. Many seemed to be Greenpoint residents–some were obviously not–and while ages and faces ranged, Tom and Starhawk knew many of them by name, continuing conversations started days prior, with a rapport as warm as it was colorful. ![]() “In theory, a tie-dye store in the middle of Greenpoint in 2016 shouldn’t work, but somehow all the stars are in alignment.”Īnd it’s true–in the brief time that I spent in Starhawk Design Studio on a random Tuesday evening customers did not stop walking through the door. “On paper, this shouldn’t work,” Tom, who is the more conventional of the brothers, at least in conversation, tells me knowingly. In 2015 they had a pop-up shop on Manhattan Avenue for a couple of days, and when they spotted an empty storefront for rent just two blocks from that location, they decided to make Greenpoint a permanent home. He and his brother, Tom Arcuri–who shared with me that he was in the clothing industry, though not on the design side, for “about 42 short years”–decided to start a business together. How Starhawk ended up Greenpoint after decades of kaleidoscopic nomadism is a story of simple fate. For years, he traveled the country creating and selling his custom-made tie-dye clothing, as means of self expression and to support himself. He’d always felt a strong kinship with color, and his inspiration sprouted from studying indigenous clothing designs, out of which came a near-obsession with American tie dye techniques. He never studied art of any kind–or attended college–but from a young age he loved gobbling up texts about ancient cultures. “The first thing I ever tried to tie dye was a butterfly on a t-shirt,” says Starhawk. Touring with the Grateful Dead is just one chapter in the dizzying book of Starhawk’s life, which includes stints with Peter Gabriel and Ziggy Marley, residence on the beaches of Hawaii, pop-up tie dye shops from Pennsylvania to California, and plenty of meditation in between. “I always had faith that travel was the right choice,” Starhawk tells me with a gleam in his eye as we stand across from one another in his shop, chatting as customers mill about picking up crystals, smelling incense, and browsing slowly through hangers swimming with tie-dyed shirts, skirts, leggings, arm warmers and socks. Though born in Brooklyn, he left home when he was a teenager. Jerry Garcia once nicknamed Starhawk “The Kid.” The co-owner of Greenpoint’s Starhawk Design Studio doesn’t really keep track of time in a conventional sense, but he reckons this was sometime back in the 70’s, when he was touring the country with the Grateful Dead. Starhawk (on the left) and his brother Tony Arcuri keep Greenpoint colorful. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |