IN Hampton Summer 2016 | Page 19

“I’ve always been a right-brain person,” he says. “I’ve done stand-up comedy, I’ve written a book and I sketched as a kid. I’ve always liked to explore and try new things.” He had been driving past a kitchenremodeling store on Route 8 when he saw old cabinets being thrown out, so he scooped them up. Once home, he disassembled the cabinets, using the old wood doors as canvases for his paintings. He soon found that he could breathe new life into decades-old barn and deck wood, picket fences, scrapped sheets of industrial metal, tree slabs and even huge bamboo pieces—“monsters,” he calls them—that he drove back from Florida. Whatever he takes in, he says, has to be old and used. Most of the materials he finds are at least 50 to 100 years old. “The older, the better,” Greco says. “I have such a fondness for old wood. It has more patina. It’s just magnificent.” Even though he’s always been environmentally conscious, he states that interest in his art wouldn’t have been as extensive 20 or 30 years ago. “There’s a lot more emphasis on recycling and on being eco-friendly today,” he says. “This movement wouldn’t have been appropriate back then.” Greco operates out of a loft studio on the second floor of his house and stores materials—like those disassembled pianos— in his garage. “My wife isn’t too thrilled with me at the moment,” he says, chuckling. He sells his work at an artisan gallery shop on Babcock Boulevard, and also has pieces on his website and at Whistling Duck Furniture in Bakery Square in East Liberty. He also sells on Etsy, eBay, Houzz and Amazon Handmade. Greco also formed a Meetup group, Pittsburgh Artisans and Makers, to collaborate with other local artists. He’s hoping to establish a “pop-up” space in the area where they can sell their art and interact with the public. Every piece, he says, tells a story. “When my clients tell their guests that their coffee table is made from a 1940 Wurlitzer upright piano, it elicits a great re