TMR Creative Collective

07/08/2023

Detroit Deconstructionist artist, Robert Sestok in front of 33/45 Mural at Third Man Pressing in Cass Corridor, Detroit, MI (2016)

We were honored to have a chat with prolific Detroit Deconstructionist artist, Robert Sestok. The following are some of his thoughts about life as an artist, Detroit, and Jack White. We hope you enjoy!  

All images courtesy of Robert Sestok

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I was interested in art in high school and then went to CCS [College for Creative Studies], now called “Arts and Design College”. We started the Willis Gallery which was behind what is now Third Man Records and we showed our art there as well as at the DIA [Detroit Institute of Art]. We did a show there called “Kick Out the Jams” that we stole from the MC 5 “Kick Out the Jams” idea. We often went to the Grande Ballroom for bands like MC5, Cream, The Who, Jimi Hendrix and lots of other bands played there. We also saw local bands in the neighborhood who played at the bar but we are artists and into the art life. I lived at the Trumbullplex. It became a theater and then a Punk venue. 

My major in college was ceramics. I also used to blow glass. I had a job one summer in Oregon. I saw Dale Chihuly blowing glass in a parking lot near Seattle. Then the next thing you know the next summer I was his assistant. I lived with him in Rhode Island for about 6 months to work on glass. He started a glass blowing school [Pilchuck] in Washington State on a tree farm and Dale invited me to do glass study there. He soon had about 40 employees helping with his glass! He even has his own restaurant with a sculpture garden [Chihuly Garden and Glass]. 

I did sculpture from 1980-2022. I first took a sculpture class in college. When I was in school everyone was doing paintings. I started doing sculpture. It didn’t cost anything. Get some tape, buy some chalk and make stuff. I used a lot of building materials. I did my first mural at the Duffy company. Then I didn’t do them any more. I kind of got into doing graffiti art after that.

I later had the sculpture park in Midtown and we would have bands play there every summer, then I moved it to the East side. I gave it up because managing bands and setting up shows messed with my time for art. I wanted to concentrate on that. I began exhibiting at the Simone DeSousa Gallery right behind Third Man. I have been showing with Simone for about 10 years now. I have sculptures all over Detroit. There is a possibility to do more commissions one day.

I have shown my work in New York. I have a lot of friends there so I communicate with them. There is nothing like Detroit. You get kind of used to the lifestyle. People have an easier life making art here. New York is a struggle. You can get by here with helping each other. It is easy going here. If you have something to share, it is easy to do here. My friend made a film about Cass Corridor years ago. I was featured in it, but it got put away. I thought a lot has happened in 20 years so I started making a film as sort of a second part to their film. We will have a small preview at MOCAD [Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit] in October. We will show it next year in 2024. This is my first film. I am not a film maker. I hired a company but I am the Producer.  

The environment in Detroit has changed. It is now gentrified. I bought a house on the East side. It’s a farming community like Cass Corridor was then. I enjoy going to Third Man Records and saying hello to the guys. Many of my art friends aren’t around any more. I am sitting here enjoying being one of the keepers of the gate of Detroit art. 

About Jack, he was working for Brian [Muldoon] who was friends with me and Brian told him he should go see my mural at the Duffy Company. My mural was 30ft.x80 ft. in a dark building full of pipes that were supplies for auto factories. Jack was about 16 when I met him. Brian and Jack would play music. The City of Detroit tore down the Duffy Company to build the Gordie Howe Bridge and they gave me $25000 to pay me for trashing my art. The thing about the music, before he [Jack] was making music, there were 2 bands we would go see and Iggy Pop would play. The Gold Dollar is where Jack played there with The GO and many of those guys now work with Jack like Roe [Peterhans] and Dave [Buick]. Jack does all of the things for the store and making things. Third Man is the only factory in Detroit proper. You’ve got to hand it to him. My grandfather worked for an office supply company in the 1920s and he got a job with Ford and walked into Henry Ford’s office and said “I remember you making all of that noise with the first car you were building.” Henry Ford liked him immediately and gave him all his business. He became a millionaire in the 1920s. Jack is one of those people. He is like Henry Ford. 

Mural at the Duffy Company

I was asked to create the mural for Third Man Pressing by Jack [2016]. He remembered me from seeing my mural at the Duffy pipe warehouse in Delray that was done in 1972 . I met Jack in Corktown at Brian Muldoon’s upholstery shop where he was working. I had Brian do some work on a couch and I traded him a sculpture for it. I designed 5 proposals for the Third Man mural and Jack really liked the last one best. I think Jack had a lot in common with my friend Gordon Newton who was also an artist. He loved hockey and Jack loved baseball. They both had strong feelings about winning and a love for the cass corridor. It’s been great working with Third Man Records and the staff.

Mural at Third Man Pressing

After I made the mural which I titled “33/45”, I asked Jack if I could paint his portrait and he said I didn’t need his permission. I guess that maybe I was influenced by Chuck Close’s Portraits but my attention to detail is quite a bit different. I’m a Detroit Cass Corridor artist and I feel that need to get things done and that gives way to a lot of fine points which do not get covered or included, therefore things become a bit edgy or rough and so much of Detroit music also has that in it. I started the [Third Man] mural with Jack playing guitar and playing records. I worked on it for a month. They said they didn’t want to go that direction, but more industrial. Diego Rivera did a mural of the assembly line workers. I ended up on a mural with circles with the record with sound waves in a similar way. It took me a whole month to come up with that. Now [with the presses], you get to see parts of it, but it’s still there and visible. Regardless, it serves as a historical document of Detroit. I am no Diego Rivera, but maybe one day. 

Renderings of ideas for the Third Man Mural. 

About art, I do art every day. It is like a ritual. You have to do it to exercise your brain. Like guitar. If you want to be any good you have to work at it every day. Jack has done everything with music. I have done everything with art. I have a certain style. Jack has a certain style. I am not world wide like Jack. He started out with record companies then decided he wanted to control his music. In art it is different, if you get too into selling art you quit being an artist. It’s not the money so much. It’s the high from experiencing the creation of art similar to what Thomas Edison said about genius, something like if you don’t apply yourself you can’t become great. The more you do the better you get. You just have to work. While making my art work a lot of my friends had teaching jobs. I decided I wanted to be an artist and a carpenter. I rebuilt homes. At 70, I bought a home and restored it. If you go down Canfield, you can see the historic homes. I rebuilt many of those. There are a lot of old houses. In the 1970s they were in bad shape. You could get one for $1000. I bought my house in 1980 for $2000. I had to learn how to lay bricks and plumbing. My grandfather, who I never knew, was a carpenter. He came from England and built houses in Hamtramck. I think I got that from him. My father was a musician. I didn’t get that gene otherwise I would have been Jack’s competition. I had a band and gave it up. I grew up welding and working on cars and doing art classes. I was creative all of the time. Then I wouldn’t call it being creative, but just being a mechanic but that is what I call it now. The changes of the seasons inspire art here. I painted the Jack portraits in the dead of winter outside of my studio. We used to have to break the ice on the toilet to use it in one of my old studios. That’s Detroit, the struggle.

Series of portraits of Jack White by Robert Sestok

I am inspired by Jack’s music and his success. He is all over the place. He grew up in Detroit and his family still lives here. How much more inspiring can he be? Like I said, he is an inspiring person like Henry Ford. 

*words were transcribed as fast as my 10 digits would allow during a phone call with Bob and a couple of emails. Errors may exist.