“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