MARK GRATTAN & THE NEW DIRECTION

Fresh off an absolute banner year, recently winning first place on Next Great Designer, landing the cover of Elle Decor and signing on with Solange Knowles’ Saint Heron, Grattan chats his new direction, clarifies recent business moves and gets to the bottom of where he wants to be.

BRIAN ROBLES: Is that a joint? Are you smoking a joint?

MARK GRATTAN: Yeah, of course. It’s called Buds!

BR: What kinda weed is it?

MG: Sativa-hybrid.

BR: Oh, good. You got shit to do.

MG: It's my daytime weed.

BR: I want to jump right into: What's going on?

MG: Yeah. Like, what the fuck is up?

BR: What's the new direction?

MG: The new direction is an independent direction. I don't want another business partner. I don't want to be having a "business.” I don't think I have the personality for it. I thought I did. I feel like I'm on the verge of something more expressive. I don't know if a business foundation is the way to do that. The development, or sort of the trajectory or evolution of my work, wants to be more expressive. I wanna be more expressive and I haven't been able to do that because, you know, I've had partnerships and I've had to think about them. You know, it's a partnership, so I wasn't necessarily able to always do the things I wanted to do. Both of [my previous] business partners, it was their money. It was another thing that I had to deal with. Now I don't have to think about shit.

BR: In this industry in order to really foster what we call “expression” and “creative endeavor,” it takes money and unless you are independently funded there's almost always this setup for patronage. You've had to have the involvement of your business partners to sort of operate but you then become responsible to them.

MG: Right. That's what they were doing. They were essentially investors and should have kept those titles and left it there. Neither really had to do much. Adam's gonna hate me for this. They wanted to be partners and they wanted to have their name next to [mine], be along for the whole ride, but then not wanna lift a finger. My ancestors and I have always had to build the house, but those other folks sleep in it. You feel me? I believe both partners had some degree of ambition and belief in the work. But the amount of work I put into this isn't something to joke about with. My passion runs deep in my craft towards my pursuit of expression. I've always had to do more work and I'm bored with that dynamic. The ups and downs and constant unanswered questions you experience as an entrepreneur in design does not scare me and it doesn't make me question my journey. At some point you realize we're not meant to be on the same train, but somehow got confused and wrapped up with the wrong train tickets. Moral of the story, I love Adam and I can't wait to see what he does with VIDIVIXI. I don't think he understands how hard it was for me to leave.

BR: You went to Mexico and did a second phase of VIDIVIXI with a different business partner. I wanna know a little bit about what happened with the first guy.

MG: Why did I even bring it back? VIDIVIXI was something I had to fight for during my first business partnership. My mother was the only person who encouraged me to fight for it. And I won that case and got that dudes lawyer debarred. Never saw him again. So at some point VIDIVIXI became an emotional connection for me. It was a metaphor for strength. It was a metaphor for courage. It was a metaphor for all these things that I had to fight through emotionally during that first partnership. So it was hard for me to let go even though I knew this operation wasn't right for me. I was always taught that having a business is a great thing, being in a partnership is the thing. Having a structured... whatever, is what I should strive for, but I guess you have to go through life to understand that's not the vibe for everyone.

BR: So, you decided that you were gonna keep VIDIVIXI going and you were gonna do it in Mexico. I think that is when it really got to take its shape, actually, because you were out of the dust of the turmoil around the first go and you found an investor, Adam. 

MG: Well, Adam found me. We were at a party and he came up to me and asked what I did. I told him I make furniture – super drunk. I didn't want another partner. I had just gotten out of a bad partnership and all this legal shit. He kept bugging the shit outta me and eventually I was like, okay, let's try this.

BR: New York has its own way of operating and we all sort of collectively participate in that. Going to Mexico and doing all these things with VIDIVIXI – you made it work, but what were the challenges involved in that?

MG: The culture is very different and it's not a capitalist culture. I mean, aspects of it are not. It's not always about the money in Mexico. It’s not always about the positive or remaining balance, you know? The culture's very family oriented. Business is not the priority, so there were a lot of things I had to learn. Everything doesn’t just happen because of money. You have to get to know people. They have to want to work with you. Also the language barrier. I learned a lot about patience. A lot about sitting back, shutting up and – I don't know, hope for the best. Just let the energy and the universe do what it wants to do with you. I learned to let go of shit. It's always a process, but I think that's something that Mexico has definitely taught me; patience and letting things happen. I mean, letting things happen with the honest integrity of knowing you did everything you could of course.

BR: Will Mexico continue to be like a part of your process with whatever you're moving onto?

MG: At this moment, it's not an immediate contact for inspiration. I still have my cozy apartment in Colonia San Rafael, but right now, am I looking forward to being back in Mexico? I’m looking forward to getting the fuck out of New York! My next stop is most likely Brazil. But for now, Mexico City is still home base.

BR: What’s going on in Brazil?

MG: It's the energy, it's my mysterious interest in the history of racism in Brazil. The history of blackness in Brazil is something that has turned me upside down. So many things that are just disgusting and awful, but has sparked mad curiosity. The language is beautiful. Obviously, the men are fucking gorgeous. I'm on Brazil right now. I was on Mexico... maybe this is the type of person I am. I don't predict having the same elaborate operation I did in Mexico. Brazil will be a place for me to hide from my profession and fucking disconnect.

BR: In so many other creative industries, there's a lot of language right now and a lot of analytics and conversation around what it is to not be a cisgendered, white, straight man with access to money working in this field. I've never really encountered any sort of language around what it is to be black in the design world.

MG: I thought I had goals before. I thought I knew what my purpose was. Which was to be successful and make a lot of money somehow. Now that I have gone through this process of being in people's phones, having more exposure, there's more attention on the work that I'm doing. It’s made me think more in depth about my purpose. I talked a little bit about this during [Ellen's Next Great Designer]: little black kids having access to seeing me on TV and having access to see a black person doing the types of things I'm doing, sort of moved my priorities in different ways -- exciting. I have a new type of pressure. Make beautiful shit and be a good role model; be a black voice in design. My responsibilities run higher than before, but it gives those responsibilities a deeper purpose. It makes me wanna... cry a little bit. It puts me in a position to give back and that is so beautiful. It makes me want to work really hard on what matters. It gives my energy more intention.. Almost as though I've had a destiny, but I didn't know it til now. It's extremely comforting to feel like I've found a little bit of that. I understand as humans we can spend an entire lifetime looking for meaning. It feels like a privilege.

BR: Between having this new type of exposure and also having been abroad, have you had a bigger shift in community in general?

MG: All the people who come up to me that have recognized me on this show are black. It happened today at the gym. The other day this black woman came up to me. It's always a black person. So that means that my community is paying attention. It means that we see each other and we are recording each other and we are filing it away. It means that it's affecting the community positively and it's making an impact.

BR: Are you able to talk about what you've been doing collaboratively with Saint Heron?

MG: Well, coincidentally you mention Saint Heron. You were talking about the gallerias and the gatekeepers and the structure of it all – that's sort of what Saint Heron is developing and trying to do, which is to create a safe place that's black-owned. A constitution that's black-owned. A gallery that's black-owned. A place where black can be black. Saint Heron is a multidisciplinary creative platform that pursues the voices and the ethos of the black experience. There's a story here that's very intentional. Solange is highly intentional. The way the products have been launched is intentional. Personally, I've been working on the product development side, furniture and objects. Solange will kick my ass if I tell you what these objects are, but I can tell you that some should be launching in the next few months as long as I can meeting my deadlines and get my shit together.

BR: And when they launch, what is the platform gonna be like?

MG: I don't know if I'm allowed to say that.

BR: Okay. That's cool. I'm just gonna ask and you can say yay or nay. I think anyone who is paying attention to what you're up to is curious to know because Solange is, at this point, a touchstone for so many people. I would imagine even outside of what she's up to in the music industry, people are paying attention to her because she does have a panache. Even outside of the black community, she's heralded as someone who is an arbiter of our generation of taste and of experience. Her references are really deep and I feel like that is true for you as well. I think it is an interesting pairing. I know Jacolby (Satterwhite), who has worked with her he had an interesting take where he's like, “Of course Mark and Solange have found each other.” The identity of Saint Heron is a bit like...

MG: It's a bit of a mirage because it's so deep.

BR: It's one of those phenomena of social media, where you can have such a strong identity without even having things spelled out. So, I think with that, there is a lot of excitement around it and I'm so excited to see where it goes and what you guys come up with.

MG: It's been a long process. But that is the process. She has a distinct vision and there's just so much that she wants to articulate in three dimensional form. It's extremely humbling to be a part of this process.

BR: It's like a metaphor for what is kind of happening in these industries. They've become mainstream. Everyone now is a designer. Everything in this world is designed and in theory, it should be the people who have the most merit around it who are fostering language and community for design, but really at this point, everyone's involved in it and corporations have gotten involved.

MG: Frank Ocean...

BR: Brad Pitt is designing solid gold end tables that are atrocious. It really has become something that's been so co-opted and you know, in some ways cool. It's becoming awash in a way and to keep a strong identity is a little bit more difficult because everyone is doing a version of something that someone has done, even as recently as a month ago. The design world right now is people bringing photos of other people's work to me and they're like, “Can you do this?” And now you're gonna be one of those designers that have people stockpiling images of your work. And they're gonna be like, “Can you do this and make this happen?” This is a major shift for you. We were always kinda at the mercy of someone else's idea. 

MG: It's a fun position to be in. I'm sort of a free agent now.

BR: To me, Rihanna is actually one of the most solid representations of what it is to just be creative and so effortlessly tuned out to what anyone else is up to. There’s this clip of her recently, I don't know what the event or thing was, but she showed up late...

MG: And she’s like, “No shit!”

BR: Exactly! And this now would be considered not the way to think about it, but back in the day, around the time when I first met you, I remember feeling this weird pressure about how I represent myself in a way that's digestible for rich people. Specifically, rich white people, because that's often what my clients are. I used to say, “Where's the Kanye of the design world?” I'm not in that camp anymore, but the idea behind it of like, where are the people in the industry who say “fuck you,” because they're so confident in their craft and what they're up to and they're not trying to appeal to these designers or galleries that are sort of the gatekeepers to who gets to have access to the projects or the clients.

MG: Authenticity is a big fucking thing. It's a big fucking thing. And a lot of people lack it, but some people have it and you gotta have courage to have authenticity. It feels good to be outspoken and be authentic.

BR: I think that's something that anyone who knows you well, has always known about you. And I think it's the thing that is most magnetic in many respects. On a professional level, I've seen you walk into a room full of these people and they're all sort of vying for your attention, even before any of the TV stuff. It's interesting to see how that has leveled up. Everything that's come your way in the past few, let's say year or years, all makes sense to me. 

MG: Thanks, that’s very sweet. Thank you Brian.

BR: You were on the cover of Elle Decor, which is another big deal in the design world. We have these three publications, maybe four; Elle Decor, Architectural Digest…

MG: Wallpaper…

BR: Surface Magazine, Pin Up, maybe. We're still operating in this way of like, if you don't land these publications, it's almost hard to imagine that you're relevant. You being on the cover of Elle Decor and there being a whole spread was its own sort of moment.

MG: It was a moment in history. I was the first black guy in the cover of Elle Decor, black person actually. The new editor-in-chief is Asad Syrkett, also black. I think that's a first too. He was like, “Mark, we're gonna shoot your apartment.” And I said, “No, you're not. Because it's not done!” I had a mattress on the floor. I had just got back to town. I had just launched all this shit. I had just done that whole Ellen show. But I was in a place to sit down and do the space. He gave me six weeks. I was like, okay, I'm up to the challenge, let's do this, but I want the cover. And he said, “I can't guarantee the cover.” In my head, I had the cover. So, that's how I went. I stuck to that. I fucking worked my ass off and created that whole thing in six weeks and god damnit, they gave me the cover. Put your fucking mind to something and you might manifest it. It might fucking happen. It doesn't take much. Self-help books say it, but like, I think this shit is real. I really do, because that's all I've had all my life. Believe in it and do the work. You're not gonna see it for a long, long, long time, but just do the work. I think you have to ignore everything go deep, tunnel vision the fuck out. Many of them are going to tell you you can't. And it'll be the folks closest to you who are persistent about that.

BR: Has Elle Decor brought you similar kind of attention as being on HBO Max? Do you think, similarly, there are now young black and brown people who are taking interest because of the cover?

MG: I hope so. I get messages about it. Specifically Mothers, black mothers. Which is interesting. It's actually really sweet.

BR: That sounds very sweet.

MG: It is actually very sweet because it's not only about Elle Decor. That in conjunction with a lot of my dialogue about my mother on that show. They’re just like, “We're so proud of you. I understand your mother.” But yeah, I think it's helping. I would like to have more of an influence educationally. It's going to take me stepping aside with my own practice, I think, to do that. Mentor ship, apprenticeship, being more active in the way of giving back. Being more of that person, hiding less during my processes and being more out there for the kids, I think is the next step.

BR: With education, what is the influence you wanna have?

MG: My mother wasn't lying when she said if you want it you can have it. She wasn't lying when she said "Keep the faith". As a black kid we have all heard "expect to work harder" than the rest and still only make it halfway. A lot of people will agree that hard work doesn't always cut it. I do believe persistence pays off. Hard work does not. I've done what I've done thus far because of an obnoxious undeniable obsession and gift. Find your gift and run with it. My influence from this point is about showing a proper example for the kids that are sitting in class contemplating an individual original voice. We all have courage, be courageous enough to tap into it. It feels so damn good.