Artist and entrepreneur, Curtis Steiner shows us the value of objects ordinary or odd
Any visitor to Curtis Steiner’s fairy-tale cottage near Green Lake should take a restroom break, needed or not, and head upstairs to peek around.
On the way up, notice the red-and-white handrail in the stairway: It’s actually a vintage surveyor’s pole.
Covering one entire wall are framed prints depicting birdlife. In the pasha’s palace of a master bedroom, heavy embroidered curtains enclose a bed covered with a tiger-print throw.
Everywhere, on tables and in alcoves, mannequins’ and saints’ hands rise up in beatific mystery.
Before heading back down, at the top of the staircase, look straight out. You’ll stare directly into the soulful eyes of a taxidermy zebra head hung on the opposing wall.
Should you stumble, startled, down the stairs, you’ll land on maple floor boards that were oxidized to the color of burnt toast and set off with luminous mother-of-pearl floor pegs.
Steiner, lounging in a showpiece surrealist chair whose backrest is made of interlocking bull horns, his tiny dog, Mortimer, yapping with excitement next to him, will look on in childlike glee.
The 44-year-old likes having that effect on people, which is probably why there’s a human-size wooden monkey holding court on the back porch.
Steiner — artist, greeting-card designer and retailer — is also something of a showman, as anyone who has ventured into his little curiosity shop Souvenir, in the Old Ballard commercial strip, can see.
He is not a wealthy man. But a strong sense of taste compensates, dictating what he buys for his store, himself and for others.
Souvenir is, for all intents and purposes, a gift shop. But at his nondescript storefront, where there isn’t even a sign to cue visitors, Steiner’s aiming for something altogether more intriguing, and he’s inviting us along for the magic-carpet ride.
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