Member Work/Life: Colen Colthurst
For a room filled with some of the most valuable furniture I’ll ever sit on, Colen Colthurst has managed to make Porch Modern feel like it could be your own living room. As he navigates the curves of a large Zaha Hadid couch to show me a handmade wooden birdhouse with checkered legs, it’s clear he’s only interested in one thing: good design, and he finds it everywhere. Even on people’s porches.
Do you think of yourself as a collector or dealer first?
⎯⎯⎯ 100% collector. I don't even consider myself a dealer, even though I’ve technically been a dealer for a quarter century. I collect things. Everything in here is the kind of thing that I personally admire and love. That's why I have a by-appointment space. It's not a retail space. People that come in can appreciate it, or I can explain things. A layperson off the street might be mesmerized or a little freaked out. Plus, there are no price tags.
When did the collecting obsession become the business?
⎯⎯⎯ I think when I had more than enough stuff in my house that I couldn't really fit anything else in. I was a photographer at that point. I was shooting skateboarding, snowboarding, and bands. I was the assistant to Rush's photographer, Andrew MacNaughtan and was studying at what is now the Metropolitan University. I eventually stopped going to school because I already had a good job in photography and it wasn't really teaching me anything. I was collecting this stuff on the side just to furnish my space. I slowly researched things I purchased and realized they were mostly designed by known designers and architects. On a whim I just decided to open up a shop with my buddy Bob in ‘95.
Where was that shop?
⎯⎯⎯ Queen & Niagara. We had a little shop on Queen & Niagara for about eight months. We moved across the street for about six months, and that was it. I realized I hated retail. I just worked from home for awhile until I eventually rented a warehouse in Etobicoke. It was mostly to store things. I had a 20-foot skateboard ramp in there as well , so I just skated. We had sessions all the time. Tony Hawk even skated it! After that, I was on Geary ave. for nine years, and then I've been here at 950 Dupont for about two years.
You were doing skateboard photography. Were you working with any magazines?
⎯⎯⎯ There were local startup magazines called Vehicle and Concrete Powder as well as Transworld . I came to the realization that I didn't like working for people which lead to me giving up photography as a job eventually . Even though you make your own hours and pick your own clients, I prefer to just do things on my own. It was kind of fun at the time. Most of my friends were pro skaters and snowboarders. We were just messing around, shooting and riding.
Where does the interest in Mid-century modern design come from?
⎯⎯⎯ Not really sure to be honest , I lean into American design, which I initially started collecting, and Scandinavian. Just generally good design, so it doesn't necessarily have to be something exceptionally expensive, although a lot of stuff in here is, unfortunately, because it's important or early or prototypical design. A lot of these items are museum quality pieces, but thoughtfully interspersed with more approachable design. Essentially interesting or unusual objects of design. I suppose I just enjoy well or thoughtfully designed objects in general.
Like these stools here. They look formidable.
⎯⎯⎯ These are Pierre Jeanneret sewing stools from Chandigarh. Really usable sculpture. Rudimentary materials and design but ultimately an incredible little object. I've been dealing in Pierre Jeanneret items from Chandigarh proper for probably eight years now. I was one of the first guys dealing in authentic and proper Jeanneret in Canada. Even in the States, there's only a few of us. I’ve had some pretty incredible pieces from that project over the years.
How do these objects get into your possession?
⎯⎯⎯ At auction sometimes. Some things just show up. Other dealers, collectors… There's things that I've found on the street. I found a Willy Rizzo rotating bar down the road on Dovercourt on my way to the gym. It's a $15,000 coffee table that was flipped upside down in two pieces. It was perfect, but somebody just threw it out. It looked like shit, but I knew what it was at first glance so loaded it up immediately.
What’s a piece that has a unique or personal story to you?
⎯⎯⎯ This chair over here for example, an early Robert Venturi chair for Knoll, was bought because I was interested in this lake house on Lake Erie from a Knoll executive. He worked at Knoll for twenty, thirty years, and he knew every designer and had worked with everybody. His entire house was furnished with incredible early Knoll and there was a lot of stuff in there. In his garage, he had this little piece of card stock, which is actually a test print for this Venturi chair, which is a pretty rare postmodern design.
And you were there for a completely different reason. You were intending to buy the whole house?
⎯⎯⎯ He contacted me saying, “I have this house full of furniture. I'm moving.” It was during COVID and he lived in Buffalo, but the house was in Port Colborne, Ontario. He's like, “I have all this furniture. Do you want to buy it?” And he gave me a picture of the house too. It turned out to be this incredible modern house that was designed by Emanuela Frattini Magnusson, the daughter of an architect that worked with Knoll. The house was incredible, and I loved it, and I'm bummed that I didn't get it. It pains me to even think about it or talk about it, but I have all these reminders because I bought a bunch of stuff from the house, which is kind of funny.
It’s kind of an occupational hazard in this line of work that you’re going to miss things, or regret not buying something.
⎯⎯⎯ Yeah, I try not to do that. As you can see, I have a lot of things. I try to be the guy that buys it rather than the guy that regrets not buying it. Sometimes to a fault.
Were there any items that you missed where you’re like, ‘I'm never letting that thing go again?’
⎯⎯⎯ There are weird situations. I purchased an early Finn Juhl Chieftain Chair on eBay for $1,000 buy-it-now, like ten or fifteen years ago. It was in Montreal, oddly enough. I emailed the guy immediately, and I'm like, “I'm driving there today, give me your address. I'm going to come pick this up.” Then, you know, thirty or forty minutes pass, and no answer. Then I see a reversed charge through PayPal, or whatever it was, and I'm like, “oh, fuck.” I mean, it's a $30,000 to $50,000 chair. I would have happily paid him more, but that’s what it was advertised for, and as buy-it-now. I did talk to him after, and he mentioned his wife found out its value. I eventually talked him up to a certain number, and he said, “OK.” It was around Christmas and I was going to send him the money, but he disappeared again until after the Holidays. Once I reached him, he said he was going to send it to auction, with a 10 to 15 K reserve, and I said I’d buy it for the low reserve, and he’s like, “my wife won't let me. She wants to see what happens.” It was an annoying thing, but those things happen all the time.
Do you remember some of the first things that you purchased? And do you still own them?
⎯⎯⎯ That's a good question. I do keep a lot of stuff. I'm a very hesitant seller, so I rarely like to part with things, especially things I'm truly in love with, which is pretty much everything here. There are a few things that I ultimately don't want to part with. So I do have stuff at home that's maybe not exceptionally expensive or historic, but it has history to me. The name Porch Modern came because I used to drive the streets and find things on porches. I used to find Eames shells a lot like in the 90s, early 2000s. They were on people's porches. I found this Hans Wegner chair on Dufferin Street on somebody's porch. I was driving to get groceries and just stopped the car like, “is that a Hans Wegner?” I knocked on the door and the guy didn't speak great English, but he was like, “oh, yeah, that's my chair.” I'm like, “do you want to sell it?” He's like, “I made that.” I'm like, “that's interesting.” I was patting my pockets and took out twenty dollars, and he's like, “yes, twenty dollars. Exactly how much I was going to ask for.” Of course he didn't make it. I mean, it's a Hans Wegner chair. So I don't know. Maybe it was a translation thing. I could go on all night with stories because I've been doing this for so long. Every object has a story to it. I also tend to buy a lot of things back from people that I sell to so that I know where it is. I like to keep it within a radius. I love selling locally because I know I can probably get it back if I want to. I like the idea of a possibility of it returning to me.
So it's not so much about the commerce.
⎯⎯⎯ I mean, I have to make a living. I still have to pay the mortgage and pay bills. But no, this isn't the job at all for me. I find things that I love and I collect things. Again, I am a hesitant dealer. So the fact that I can still do this and make a living and live well, it's nice. I'm pretty blessed in that sense. It allows me to golf a lot.
Do you find your taste in design changing over time?
⎯⎯⎯ I've been thinking about that recently. I mean, I've been dealing with kind of 40s through 70s for a lot of my career, and I'm very in tune with that stuff, especially American modern. But I'm getting kind of bored of it because I've realistically had all of it from the earliest iterations to the newest stuff. There's definitely some contemporary work and some 80s and 90s stuff, and there's always like a ten year, twenty year cycle in this business, but I like to design my own stuff now, and so I’m moving towards that.
What are you designing, and what materials are you using?
⎯⎯⎯ A lot of aluminum, copper, and brass. These lights, for example, are solid milled. I drew this kind of light design for ten years in sketchbooks and then when I was on Geary, there was a metal shop called Sixpenny that did custom fabrication. I got him to prototype this light for me finally, and I love it. It turned out really nice. The scale was really pleasant. Everything worked out well. So I made a few. I do shelving as well. Again, I'm a hesitant seller, even though I'm kind of designing this stuff for myself as prototypes.
Maybe that's the best way to go about it.
⎯⎯⎯ I think so, and now I have almost a full line of stuff that I can sell. It’s certainly not inexpensive to produce and probably again, a bad business plan, but I feel the need to create these things. And everyone seems to like it, which I'm happy with. And I like it, which is more important to me.
Are you getting ready to release a collection?
⎯⎯⎯ I love creating and building things or getting things made, but I'm literally the worst salesperson. I'm only a salesperson if I'm talking to one person and I get their vibe and we understand each other. And I know what they're looking for. Like, I love placing things with people. I love placing things within their house or starting a collection for them so they can understand it, because a lot of people are kind of afraid of art and design. You have to kind of handle them a little bit. I mean, it sounds kind of horrible, but it's true. You have to tenderly bring them into the world of design. A lot of handholding.
What would you design next?
⎯⎯⎯ I have some interesting things going on. There's a historically important house in Toronto, and there's an interior design firm that's been working with them for the past three or four years. They love my lamps, and as such wanted me to design a bronze version of it for a custom table they made, which is cool because the interior of that place is all bronze. So it's kind of site specific. I love stuff like that. This bowl, this is a solid piece of aluminum that's been milled away. So it's a little silly because it's a lot of waste, but it's not really waste because you can recycle the aluminum, right?
Sure. And it's a bowl.
⎯⎯⎯ It's a bowl. I'm glad you can see it as a bowl because it's what it's supposed to be. So I made three of those and I kept one. They wanted two, I just made one for myself. But I love commissions now, and that's kind of hopefully the way I'm going. I like designing for a site specific space, or a person, or a collection. I’m working on a few other commissions at the moment as well. So now I'm thinking of different materials and making it more of like a usable sculpture, which ties into the furniture that I love. A combination of natural materials in unusual forms and applications.
What other projects do you have going on?
⎯⎯⎯ A lot of stuff at the moment. In addition to the commissions I have in the works for the Philip Johnson penthouse in Toronto, I just did a collaboration with a local clothing company, Outclass, have my new website dropping, and am doing a really interesting pop-up storefront in Detroit with my friend Anthony of Library Street Collective and Brian Richer of Castor Design.
Do you feel you've wandered into becoming an artist or were you always an artist, you just changed your medium?
⎯⎯⎯ I think I've always been an artist. I mean, I've always had artistic sensibilities. I was a pretty bad artist when I was a kid, but I guess most are unless you're really young and then you're the fucking the best artist in the world, because my son's early works are incredible. No filter, no preconceptions of art or whatever. But as I went on, I think it kind of happened organically as well. I think I just like to create stuff, and collect things that have been created by other people.
I feel like this room is your canvas. It’s like a collage or something. It is very intentional.
⎯⎯⎯ Yeah, that's a good way to put it. I mean, it's a collage of the things I love and what's in my head. And things I enjoy. I mean, there's texture, there's form, there's color, there's shape, it’s tactile. It’s everything that I love.
Is there an object that you're becoming interested in that you wouldn't typically associate with design, but that you are discovering and collecting?
⎯⎯⎯ Vintage watches. It's such a douchey business, and maybe it’s a horrible thing, but they're so interesting, and I'm kind of super into it. I stick with Rolex mainly. There's like ten different models of a Rolex, which have slightly changed over the sixty or seventy years of the models that I collect. You can learn it all because you can see every variation, and it's similar to any design because early prototypical design will change from how the artist or the designer saw it at the beginning, to when it goes into production. You'll see iterations of dials where hands will change for certain reasons, or colors of lettering will change, or bezels. It's all intertwined. I mean, it's all design, so everything's design. Everything has to be a design that's created and put out in the market. A plug is a design. A book.
Those spray bottles you use to clean your counter.
⎯⎯⎯ Literally everything is designed, unless you find a rock or something, but that too has been designed by nature because water has run over it or whatever. It doesn't know it's doing it, but-
That we can appreciate it. That's the design.
⎯⎯⎯ Overall, I just…I like design.
He likes design.
⎯⎯⎯ I like design.
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