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Friday Five with David Stark

David Stark is a renowned New York-based event producer as well as President and Creative Director of David Stark Design and Production. This full-service event design and planning firm is celebrated for the innovative, imaginative events it creates for a wide range of high-wattage celebrity clients such as Beyoncé Knowles and Jon Stewart, major corporations such as Target, TBS and Condé Nast, as well as high-visibility fund-raising galas for the nation’s most elite not-for-profit organizations including The Museum of Modern Art and The Robin Hood Foundation.

In April 2010, Stark released his newest book David Stark Design (Monacelli Press) a visually stunning monograph that documents David Stark Design and Production’s design philosophies, conceptual process, and breadth of work put forth since the Company’s inception in 2005.

This month, Stark has partnered with West Elm to debut The (purely paper) Flower Shoppe at their Broadway location in New York City. As his third collaboration with West Elm, Stark will be showcasing flora, gardening tools, and plants made entirely from paper collected from books on the streets of New York.  For two days only (today and tomorrow), the public will be able to visit the installation where even the walls are constructed of paper and purchase the eco-friendly masterpieces Stark is known for. If you’re in NYC, go check it out!

Here are five of David’s current interests:

1. Paper.
I love making stuff out of materials that are unlikely. I have had paper on the brain for a bunch of years now, and a fantasy of mine is coming true this week, creating an entire flower shop — walls, awning, flowers, plants, even shovels out of pages of discarded books!

2. Christian Astuguevieille
I am interested in artists who work with similar strategies and am obsessed with the furniture of Christian Astuguevieille. I would just love to own this shaggy puppy.

3. Roy McMakin
I look at images of this room that Roy McMakin created all the time with wonder. His new book When Is a Chair Not a Chair? is very inspiring to me.

4. Ettore Sottsass
It’s funny how things look wacko at certain time periods and oh, so chic during others. The work of Ettore Sottsass is case in point. Why does Memphis look so groovy now?!

5. My Team
Of course, my new book David Stark Design is on my brain a lot right now. Every time I flip through it, I am so inspired by the amazing TEAM at my organization. What does TEAM stand for?  TOGETHER EVERYONE ACCOMPLISHES MORE!

Jaime Derringer, Founder + Executive Editor of Design Milk, is a Jersey girl living in SoCal. She dreams about funky, artistic jewelry + having enough free time to enjoy some of her favorite things—running, reading, making music, and drawing.