Rooftops & Michelin Stars

Somewhere along the way, I realized I was tied to two worlds that aren’t supposed to belong together.

One involved climbing up my telescopic ladder to a rooftop in the middle of the night with a backpack full of paint. The other involved white tablecloths, carefully folded napkins, and multi-course meals.

One is loud. The other is quiet.

One requires you to break the rules. The other asks you to respect them.

On paper, they couldn’t be more different, yet both require precision and performance.

And both give me the same feeling.

Presence.

When standing on a rooftop, everything unnecessary falls away. You’re not thinking about errands or emails. You’re tuned into the wind, how close your foot is to the edge, whether the law is driving by, and completing the task directly in front of you.

A great meal does something similar.

The ingredients. The technique. Every detail has been considered. Every choice was intentional. Someone devoted themselves to creating an experience that would exist for only a few hours before disappearing.

That’s real.

I remember climbing a rooftop with a film crew following behind me. We were recording the installation for a documentary I had been featured in. As I climbed the ladder, I mentally ran through my checklist—paint, stencil, rope for the ladder, tape…

Then I started laughing.

Years earlier, on a rooftop in West Palm Beach, I had forgotten tape.

Not extra tape. All tape.

The only piece I had was the small strip holding my stencil rolled shut. I peeled it off, climbed onto the roof, and spent the installation using my own body to pin the stencil against the wall while spray painting around it.

The piece got done, and the film crew got their footage.

Preparation matters. Improvisation matters too.

Years later, I found myself sitting at La Grande Cascade just outside Paris.

Dessert arrived.

A perfect red chocolate sphere.

The maître d’ approached and tapped it gently with the back of a spoon. The shell split cleanly into two halves, revealing a gold-speckled deconstructed strawberry shortcake inside.

It caught me completely off guard.

I’ve eaten many memorable meals, but I still think about that dessert.

Not because it was expensive.

Because it was thoughtful.

Because someone cared enough to turn a simple moment into an experience.

Maybe that’s why I’ve never understood the assumption that luxury and grit sit on opposite ends of a spectrum.

To me, they are often expressions of the same thing.

A refusal to move through life half awake.

A willingness to pursue experiences that make you feel alive.

A commitment to craft.

The rooftop artist and the Michelin-starred chef have more in common than most people realize. Both are obsessed. Both are chasing a vision that exists in their mind before it exists in reality. Both are willing to endure discomfort in pursuit of something worth creating.

And both create work that is ultimately ephemeral.

I’ve spent years moving between these worlds.

Painting walls in forgotten places.

Curating art inside luxury hotels.

Installing work for collectors.

Eating meals I’ll remember for the rest of my life.

Creating things that leave a lasting imprint on people and place.

The older I get, the less interested I become in choosing one identity over another.

The tension between those worlds is where I feel most at home.

That’s where my work comes from.

And perhaps that’s where luxury really begins—not in exclusivity, but in the experience of being fully present to a moment you know you’ll never forget.