By contributing writer Maureen Sullivan
Taking Care of Business
It’s 4pm on a Thursday and calls are coming into local sculptor STRETCH’s studio at rapid-fire pace.
“I’m running out of frickin’ time on this. I thought we had this done,” he says to a bank about a potential property purchase.
“I was calling to say get her off the [expletive] clock -- there’s no reason for her to be there,” he tells one of his restaurant on a return phone call.
Finally, to his trusted Assistant, Holly Hayden, “My phone’s too slow, plug it in before I throw it.” When asked if this is a typical afternoon, Hayden replies, “This is tame. At least we’re sitting down.”
Ironically, STRETCH’s moniker seems to have gone beyond a nickname or even brand: It seems to be a way of life. STRETCH has so many irons in the fire -- multiple restaurants, a music venue, real estate, renovations, TV appearance, and, oh yeah, actually creating art -- that he is, quite literally, stretched thin. And he is loving every minute of it. “The coals are getting hotter,” he says with a smile.
If you have met STRETCH or seen his artwork, it’s not hard to understand why things are heating up for him. He is intense. He’s loud. He’s blunt. The attributes combined with his ubiquitous tattoos and his wild spiky hair make him a force to be reckoned with.
His sculptures, often large-scale and made primarily of glass and steel, follow suit. You’ve probably seen them at such high-profile spots around town as the H&R Block Headquarters in the Power & Light District or the Kansas City Airport.
And his background was one of intense artistic training before veering into entrepreneurialism. A graduate of both the Kansas City Art Institute and Virginia Commonwealth University, where he earned his MFA, STRETCH has worked with renowned artists near and far, including the late Dale Eldred, former chair of the KCAI sculpture department, whom he studied under as an undergrad, Jim Leedy, John Henry and Mark di Suvero.
STRETCH was, like Leedy, an early pioneer of the then-fledgling Crossroads arts scene.
“I opened the third gallery [in the Crossroads] he says. “There was Leedy [-Voulkos Art Center], Dolphin [Gallery], and me. Shortly after that was Byron Cohen [Gallery].
STRETCH has become almost symbolic of the Crossroads. Along with his wife, Rebecca Ederer, owner of Beco Flowers in the Crossroads, STRETCH has helped engineer the district from a series of run-down buildings into a full-blown artists enclave. First he bought a building on the 1900 block of Wyandotte. After selling that, he began buying up property around the 18th & Locust Streets.
In 2004, he opened Grinders Pizza there, A kind of K.C.-meets-East-Village-dive bawdy hipster hang-out, Grinders specializes in straightforward fare: pizza, beer, burgers, wings, Philly cheese steaks, and grinder sandwiches, of course.
A music venue in Grinders’ backyard, also courtesy of STRETCH, Crossroads KC at Grinders, followed soon after. His holdings on the block have been growing ever since he opened Grinders West, a more upscale deli, next to Grinders almost two years ago- with no plans to stop anytime soon. STRETCH intends to add barbeque place to his holdings, a truck-and-trailer operation by Belly Up BBQ, a catering company run by Craig Adcock. And he’s not just expanding restaurants: STRETCH plans to add a second stage to his music venue, this one indoor, in the building on Locust Street that used to house his studio, located just behind the current Crossroads KC outdoor stage.
“That’ll bring a whole other element,” he says of adding an indoor stage. “We do 35 shows a year now [outdoors], and we’ll do 150-plus shows indoors.” He’s also looking at taking his show on the road-the Crossroads concept, that is.
“I have opportunities in other parts of the country to duplicate what we have with the arts and the music and the food, in other cities. There’s two, possibly three cities right now: Denver, San Antonio, and Chattanooga,” STRETCH says. “They’re all edgier areas kind of like that [East Crossroads] location was. We’re not going to just go into a strip mall. That’s not what we’re about. It’s about people, community and the arts.”
The Living Room STRETCH
Of course, that commitment to art is paramount to STRETCH, and with positions on the International Sculpture Center board of directors and on the Kansas City TIF commission, he’s equally community-committed. But there’s yet another, growing side to STRETCH: the TV personality.
STRETCH has done turns on Discovery Channel’s Monster House, ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and several of the Food Network’s shows as an artist and restaurateur: Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and Guy’s Big Bite. He’s traveled with the Guy Fieri Roadshow tour, and he’s been a finalist for permanent slots on both Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and a National Geographic pilot. Through neither of those panned out, the interest is still there. He’s recently been approached by a major cable network for a show of his own, which could start filming as early as this fall.
“You know, I’m not out in California, waiting to be discovered. I’ve got plenty to do,” he says with a laugh. “So it’s kind of fun.”
Besides fun, the TV appearances don’t hurt in raising his national profile- and that of his restaurants featured on the show, which thus require heightened attention. He postponed an upcoming show- the first time in 20-some years, he says- at Leedy-Voulkos from this fall to spring after buying out his partner at the restaurants loft him without a manager. Rather than trying to hire a replacement and complete a show and give it the attention it deserved-“I really want to focus on [the show]. I do a show at Leedy’s probably every four years, so it’s always a big show when I show in town” – since getting the right replacement at the restaurant is crucial.
“I have great people that run everything,” STRETCH says. “and in the restaurants, it’s so important that people understand that I have a great crew that allow me to travel the world and make art and do other stuff, that really they’re the backbone over there.”
But for STRETCH, the restaurants, the music venue, even the TV appearances- off of which he says he’s “never made any money, directly”- it all seems a means to an end.
“If my TV appearances, whether it’s Food Network or Extreme Makeover or any of that stuff, sell more pizza, that means I get to make more artwork,” he muses.
Which for an artist at heart, even one turned entrepreneur, is the ultimate goal.
For article see pages 90-95 of Kansas City Spaces Magazine September 2010 issue
