For more than a decade Nicola and Brendan have been working at the forefront of affordable, handcrafted, green art.  They work to blur the lines between craft and modern art, building pieces on the conceptual foundations of modernism– process, performance, and politics — while limiting themselves to sustainable, organic and recycled materials.   Click here to read their Green Art Manifesto.  Read a New York Times profile of their work here.

Chosen as one of the Village Voices’ favorite ‘07 Christmas gifts and showcased at the New York American Folk Art Museum, their pieces combine antique recycled wood with original silkscreens, handmade papers and micro-photography.

Their pieces range from “reverse” silkscreens and hand torched “reclaimed word” magnets to birdhouse planters milled from New England church pews and clocks fashioned from NYC watertowers.

Nicola and Brendan choose to sell only outside on the streets and in the parks of NYC, where they can animate what they make; craft narratives around their pieces to be carried back to people’s homes, people’s lives. Their art is buttressed by the history of their recycled materials; by the sparks of conversations with customers; by supporters returning week after week to talk, to share, and to carry home their work.

Nicola and Brendan work from their studios in Brooklyn and CT.  Nicola is a distinguished graduate of University of Michigan School of Art and Design. Brendan is epileptic, asthmatic, short, bald, born in Newfoundland, and has a checkered past.

Check out Nicola and Brendan’s latest projects here.

Here’s the New York Times slideshow of us playing around in Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn: