Tattered Jeans

Steve Minatra sees the gems among the junk: A true craftsman shares his secrets

Meet Steve Minatra.
Photo by Katie Oxford
Minatra at home, with light fixtures he made with “junk”
Photo by Katie Oxford
Light fixture Minitra made from broomsticks
Photo by Katie Oxford
CD lamps
Photo by Katie Oxford
Protest signs Minatra made for friends participating in Occupy Houston
Photo by Katie Oxford
“Then I realized I could make signs for the other side, too.”
Photo by Katie Oxford
A standing light fixture made by Minatra
Photo by Katie Oxford
Check out his desk lamp!
Photo by Katie Oxford
Storage room for Minatra's next works
Photo by Katie Oxford
Bright ideas from Minatra
Photo by Katie Oxford

Steve Minatra makes things. He is the guy behind the scenes — literally.

He has done everything, from helping to make set designs for film spots and window displays for Hermès, to creating a Ludwig look-a-like from Harry Potter the movie. He built the owl with high-density foam, and he has high-density brainpower, too.

Minatra describes what he does as, “doing handiwork type stuff.” Some handiwork! He can create light fixtures and more using “junk,” he says. The end result looks anything but and is as brilliant in design as it is functional. His Montrose home illustrates this point perfectly.

When I recently visited him there, Minatra laughingly described the interior, “like stepping into my mind.” Indeed it is. He has an artist’s eye, an engineer’s understanding and he uses both when making something. In my mind, this is magic.

Minatra's home is a building that he found 14 years ago while on a photo shoot. The structure was built in the '50s as an extension of someone’s home. Later, it became a neighborhood grocery story, then several beer joints. The story goes that at least two people, in separate instances, have been shot there. Supposedly in the large, open room where we were sitting.

When I asked him what drew him to Houston, Minatra immediately listed five things: “In the first place, my heart was always here,” he said. “Houston is entrepreneurial. It has a lot of physical and psychological space. It combines the best parts of Southern and Western, and … it’s not expensive.”

Born in Nashville in 1951, Minatra grew up in Memphis until he was old enough to run away from home at age 18. He came to Houston for a period and lived in different places afterwards, but liked Houston the best. “While I was living in NYC,” Minatra says, “I would wonder, ‘what are they doing in Houston?’ every day. I moved to Brooklyn where I could see the sky, but it didn’t make it better, it made it worse.”

So, in 1988, he returned to Houston and was hired by Dave Berman to work on TV commercials. “All the useless skills I had acquired through life,” Minatra explained, “suddenly connected.” He has been here ever since practicing those skills, none of which his clients — some of them interior designers — would describe as useless.

Whatever Minatra makes, you can be sure it is original. Using great shades of green, he painted protest signs for friends participating in Occupy Houston. He shares their views. “Then,” Minatra says smiling, “I realized I could make signs for the other side.” In colors of red, white and blue, he uses satire to convey the message, “I’VE GOT MINE.” Underneath the signage, he painted a pink pig.

Minatra's Christmas cards are original, too. They are my favorite every year.

No family photo in his cards. Nor do they include a typed letter telling you who, what, when, where and why of the last year. They are colorful, honest and handwritten in words that hold not an ounce of fat and would bring Santa himself into belly achin’ laughter.

Last Christmas, I took a fistful of Minatra’s cards to a small party of close friends and read them aloud. Everyone howled. Then, we read them again and howled louder. Here’s one he wrote in 2002 using thick red ink:

The seasonal labor is over. The homes of the rich and the luxurious stores are decorated. Now I can decorate my house, visit my Folks in Memphis, and rest up ‘til January 2nd when everyone will want all that crap out-a-there!
Mucho love and Merry etc., Steve

About a year ago, after eyeing Minatra’s owl creation, I asked him how he would describe what he does. Silence. “Okay then,” I pressed, “Would you send me a bio or something?” He sent the latter, one sentence long. Vintage Steve:

"Steve Minatra realized at a young age that the best way to get people to do what you want is not be too particular about what you want them to do."

Minatra has done everything, from helping to make set designs for film spots and window displays for Hermès, to creating a Ludwig look-a-like from Harry Potter the movie.

Enclosed were a few of his business cards. On one side was a photograph reminiscent of the movie The Illusionist. On the reverse side were the following words, with a miniature graphic behind each: transport, assemble, install, furniture, exhibits, interiors.

As reflected in most everything he makes, Minatra is a minimalist. Interestingly, he studied to be a musician, receiving a degree in music from the University of St. Thomas in 1974. He can play the guitar, violin and piano.

Altogether, it makes perfect sense. In a way, Minatra’s a wizard. Perhaps he said it best when he talked about the junk. “You know how you save things that you don’t know what you’re going to do with but they’re just too good to throw away?” he asked. "Sometimes, it takes years, but you begin to see the relationship between different pieces of junk. You see the way that stuff fits together.” In Minatra's world, things fit beautifully.

Like when he pulls broomsticks (wooden are hard to find) out of someone’s garbage and voila, makes a light fixture. So it goes with everything he makes. He sees stuff where others don't. “I could always see space,” he claims.

Pure magic.

unspecified

gold pony club

Inside the creation of the rodeo cook-off’s most over-the-top tent

Courtesy of Cotton Holdings

The Gold Pony is the ultra-private VIP lounge behind the stage.

The Cotton Q Club is arguably the glitziest and most exclusive tent at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo’s annual World's Championship Bar-B-Que Contest. Hosting nearly 800 invited guests-per-night, the 5,000-square-foot space includes a 50-foot bar, a new pop-up martini bar by Sophie Cocktail & Terrace Bar called “The Stirrup,” the ultra-exclusive “Gold Pony Club,” and a full stage for private concerts. This season, county music acts include Gabby Barrett, Sammy Kershaw, Josh Turner and Braxton Keith.

Aside from the obvious, what sets the club apart from the rest is the sheer magnitude of its operation. Once inside, guests are encapsulated by velvet-draped ceilings illuminated by crystal chandeliers, three-layer tartan-topped carpeting, richly-colored wooden-paneled walls, plus thousands of red roses swathed acrobatically throughout.

To coincide with the year of the horse, five enormous ponies made entirely of red roses have been suspended from the ceilings. The second additions this year hang on either side of the bar in The Gold Pony, the club’s even more exclusive VIP area. The kinetic artworks were created by Houston artist Sneha Merchant —all for a three day fête. This begs the question: how do they do it?

Cotton Holdings and its subsidiaries are well positioned to carry out the entire project themselves — so they do. Never bothered or besmirched by the possibility of running into issues with rental companies, everything at The Cotton Q Club is procured, purchased, and stored in-house. As one would expect from a company that provides disaster relief around the world.

“There is a lot of love and care put into this because we’re not in a hotel, we’re not in someone’s home,” Cotton Holdings chief marketing officer Zinat Ahmed tells CultureMap. “So for us to be able to create this entire infrastructure under a tent — down to the walls and chandeliers — it is much more than throwing a party. It’s about the details that make people feel that they are at a hotel, they are in an extravagant room, they are at The Polo Bar.”

Ahmed notes that a lot of the company’s culture is mixed into the tent, such as what Cotton does as a disaster relief company (including providing food by Cotton Culinary).

“Cotton Logistics puts up tents during a natural disaster. Seeing the Cotton team, whether it’s cleaning or moving things around, welcoming everyone, that’s part of our Cotton GDS — we restore communities after natural disasters. Our synergies in different parts of our day-to-day are here,” she says.

Ahmed’s team has complete creative control over the interior aesthetics of the club. Always sourcing anything that cannot be made in-house to local vendors is something she feels is important. Nothing is rented, not even the furniture or accessories.

“Every single thing, unless it was done by a local vendor, was done in-house: design, signage, execution — even the embroidery,” she explains

Everything is checked over during the summer months so there won’t be any surprises when the cook-off comes back around. Every item is organized, labeled, and stored either in Cotton’s warehouses, Conex boxes, or in special climate-controlled safes — down to the matchboxes.

“We are always prepared and ready to go,” explains Ahmed. “It’s not chaotic at all because we’re used to it — it’s a normal day at Cotton.”

When asked for her favorite parts of the tent this year, Ahmed readily answered that it has to be the five rose ponies in the main area of the club. Secondly, the two commissioned works by Sneha Merchant. Sprinkled in diamond dust, one is a female mallard wrapped in a boa, champagne flute in hand, while the other is a smartly-suited jackalope complete with cowboy hat and martini.

Both pieces are lit by antique sconces Ahmed sourced from Round Top, while the taxidermy Zebra heads are on loan from the Columbus, Texas ranch of Cotton Holdings’ Chairman Pete Bell.

“Every detail, down to the swatches of velvet has been thought of with a lot of love and care,” says Ahmed. “You use that mindset with something like this. So, if you have a mindset like before you deploy to a hurricane, you can do it for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.”

Courtesy of Cotton Holdings

The Gold Pony is the ultra-private VIP lounge behind the stage.

houston livestock show and rodeo home-design cotton holdings