Artist Jil Weinstock Scours eBay with a Sculptor's Eye

By Reena Jana
March 18, 2011

New York-based artist Jil Weinstock's sculptures of vintage toys and clothing dipped in bronze or encased in rubber are at once haunting and lovely. Jil Weinstock's nostalgic artwork tends to evoke memories from key life moments, from opening Christmas presents as a child to weddings. To achieve a sense of true nostalgia, the sculpture artist, whose work is part of the private art collections of the Seattle Art Museum and other notable institutions, prefers to work with used objects that show wear and tear—a sign of the love of an owner for her belongings. eBay online auctions are a favorite source for both art materials and research.

Currently, sculpture artist Jil Weinstock is preparing for two high-profile art shows: one, a group show scheduled for late spring and early summer, is being organized by curators at New York's prestigious Fashion Institute of Technology and will feature her signature sculptures crafted from dresses, shirts, and other sartorial materials, alongside the work of other notable artists. The other, opening in the fall, is a solo exhibition at Winston Wachter Gallery in Manhattan's Chelsea art district. It will feature new art pieces that incorporate toy airplanes from the 1970s and other symbols of freedom and flight.
Jil Weinstock's Loft
Beyond her nostalgic art sculptures and art installations, Jil Weinstock also applies her artist’s eye and love of all things vintage to the renovations of her family’s homes. With husband Eric Freitag, the director of engineering services at the well-known industrial design firm Smart Design (and the co-founder of a fly-fishing equipment company called Fishworks), artist turned interior designer Jil Weinstock has transformed a floor of a former factory into a loft on New York’s Lower East Side (which she just sold) and a rustic lakeside Pennsylvania cabin into a super-comfy and hip country home. Currently, the couple is renovating a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights, which they will occupy with their two children, Eloise, 9, and Ryder, 6. Many of the fixtures, appliances, and furniture for these homes were sourced on eBay. The items represent a mix of industrial and antique interior design items that give each living environment an artful sense of originality.

Jil Weinstock's Loft

Jil Weinstock's Lower East side loft. The Chicago faucet fixtures, seen in the photo above, and vintage stove parts were purchased on eBay.

Jil Weinstock shared her eBay strategies (and those of her kids) with us.

The Inside Source: Your art sculptures and art installations often reference fashion, from your use of vintage 1950s taffeta dresses to your incorporation of hip, colorful Ted Baker shirts from today. Can you talk about the theme of fashion in your artwork?

Jil Weinstock: Much of my work deals with nostalgia and memory. But it’s not about sentimentality. My sculptures and installations are more about capturing specific moments in time. They’re about visual clues that identify certain periods in history and that can help viewers identify with their own personal histories. And because my work is about capturing particular eras, there is usually some form of a fashion component as well. Fashion is an excellent marker of time and of personal taste and memory.

Personally, I don’t get consumed by wearing fashionable clothes, but I love looking at fashion as if pieces of clothing are art objects. I am fascinated by how clothes are constructed, how designers can use various fabrics to achieve such different effects when making shirts and dresses. Clothing can be so compelling, purely when you look at it as interesting artwork in itself.

I pair memory and fashion in many of my pieces. Some installations are really portraits of people, illustrated in clothing. In one series, I used clothes lined up in rows to evoke the sight of children standing for their class portraits. I featured dresses that belonged to my grandmother and encased them in rubber. I also used vintage dresses that I found on eBay.

Artwork by Jil Weinstock

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Illuminated men's striped shirts, 2010
rubber,vintage men;s shirts, fluorescent lights, stainless steel, plexi
24 x 16 x 3 1/2" each
Group Portrait 1 and 2, 2010
rubber, vintage clothing
42 x 56" overall each
Group Portrait, Detail 2010
rubber, vintage clothing
dimensions variable
Group Portrait, 2010
rubber, vintage clothing
dimensions variable
Airplane, 2010
Electroplated bronze, molded plastic
Dimensions variable
Photo Credit: Jil Weinstock
Tractor, cart and chicken, 2010
Electroplated bronze, molded plastic
Dimensions variable
House
Electroplated bronze and molded plastic
2011
Pink floral chiffon with rhinestones
Rubber, vintage dress
2x24" diameter, 2008
White ruffle flower organdy
Rubber, vintage dress
2x24" diameter, 2008
Mint green lace
Rubber, vintage dress
50" with exposed fabric skirt, 2008

The Inside Source: A lot of your sculpture artwork is encased in rubber. Why the fascination with this material?

Jil Weinstock: I love working with rubber. It’s a material that doesn’t seem old-fashioned at all; it seems so modern, as it’s used in items such as kitchen gadgets or cell-phone cases. I love combining the old and the new—to breathe a new breath into the history of clothing that’s obviously been worn; to create a new life and a new chapter for the clothes as sculptures.

The Inside Source: Do you often turn to eBay online auctions when you are in the research phase of making art?

Jil Weinstock: What I enjoy about using eBay as a resource both for materials for my sculptures as well as for my personal life is that it’s a place where you pretty much can always find what you need. My husband and I have long loved going to flea markets. We think of shopping for antique and vintage items as entertainment; when we lived in the Bay Area, we’d head over to the Saturday flea market in San Francisco before the sun would rise. Part of the delight was stumbling on furniture that we just discovered and never planned on finding. This was before eBay launched.

Now we are often on eBay at all hours—and also with our kids. With the resource of eBay, our collecting and my own hunt for clothing I might use in my art have to be searches that are clearly defined. So eBay has conditioned us to know more about what we are looking for and to understand the value of what we are shopping about a bit more. We don’t use eBay for impulse buying. In order to access eBay in a way that’s efficient, you have to be somewhat conscious of the parameters of what you’re looking for. It’s great for people who are looking for specific things. To me, it’s like going to the library.

And using eBay is also about the joy of buying something that truly fits. I mean that in every sense of the word. It’s where you find the one dish that fits your favorite China pattern, to replace the plate that broke. Even if I don’t win a bid, I always console myself by reminding myself that an object is going to a home where someone really wanted it.

The Inside Source: Your children also use eBay—can you tell us what they collect?

Jil Weinstock: Our nine-year-old daughter Eloise has a Pez-dispenser collection and our six-year-old son Ryder has a Hess truck collection. They both research these on eBay. When they find the item they have been looking for and a price they feel comfortable with, they will bid. When they get that e-mail saying they are highest bidder, they run around saying "I won, I won,” as of they’ve won a prize.

Hess Trucks; Pez

Weinstock's children's eBay collections:Hess toy truck (Ryder) and Pez dispensers (Eloise)

The Inside Source: You mentioned your husband, Eric Freitag, who is the director of engineering services at Smart Design, a leading industrial design firm that recently won a National Design Award. Do you ever search eBay together, for fun?

Jil Weinstock: We’ve bought a number of appliances and fixtures for our homes on eBay. In each of these projects, all complex renovations, we try to bring the history of our living spaces into the present. We searched for some hard-to-find pieces for our kitchens and bathrooms, from Chicago faucet fixtures [that are usually used in commercial settings] and vintage stove parts for our old O’Keefe and Merritt stove. We used eBay to find these.

We have this rule that if either one of buys something into the house from eBay, an equal size or larger item must be removed by selling it on eBay. It all comes full circle.

The Inside Source: You have a few art exhibitions that you’re working on right now. What are you looking for on eBay to use for contemporary sculptures for these shows?

Jil Weinstock: I am desperate to find a Fischer Price jet airplane circa 1970. I am also researching sculptures of birds, mostly pigeons. I have actually just bid on a book about migratory bird patterns, and I hope I win!

This is all for the artwork I’m developing now, which is centered around the themes of flight, freedom, and weightlessness. I’m curious about what’s been produced, what’s been bought and what’s selling related to these ideas.

(Images courtesy of Jil Weinstock)

Want to shop eBay like Jil Weinstock and her family? Take a look at these items, which reflect some of the artist’s (and her husband’s and children’s) searches.

Ted Baker Shirt

(buy it now price, $69.97)

Weinstock has incorporated striped Ted Baker mens’ shirts into her artwork.
Vintage 1950s Taffeta Dress

(buy it now price, $64.99)

Weinstock has also purchased numerous 1950s taffeta dresses for her sculptures. The brightly hued frocks with their frothy skirts make visually stunning artworks when the artist casts them in rubber.
Vintage Fisher-Price Airplane Circa 1970

(current bid, $13)

For recent shows at Sara Meltzer Gallery in New York and Walter Maciel Gallery in Los Angeles, Weinstock bronzed classic Fisher Price toys from the 1970s, many of which she bought on eBay, using the same process used for bronzing baby shoes. The idea was to turn well-loved toys into iconic sculptures and to memorialize childhood.
Mid-Century Bird Sculpture

(buy it now price, $245)

Currently, Weinstock is researching bird sculptures for an exhibition she is working on that will open at New York’s Winston Wachter Gallery in the fall. Some loose themes she’s considering are those of “flight” and “freedom,” she says.
Vintage Fly Fishing Reel

(buy it now price, $14)

Weinstock’s husband, Eric Freitag is the co-founder of a fly-fishing equipment company called Fishwork. He often scours eBay for vintage fishing reels for design inspiration.
Vintage O’Keefe & Merritt Stove

(buy it now price, $1,675)

Weinstock and Freitag source many of their appliances on eBay, such as a vintage O’Keefe & Merritt stove.
Chicago Faucet

(buy it now, $139.99)

Weinstock and Freitag also add sleek industrial touches to their home renovations. It’s a design strategy that lends a modern twist to the environments they live in, which are often filled with vintage objects. They often use Chicago faucets that are usually found in restaurants and bars, but look quite elegant in a personal home.
Pez Dispensers

(buy it now price, $12.99)

Weinstock’s 9-year-old daughter Eloise might not yet be an art collector, but she does collect something else: Pez dispensers. When Weinstock researches materials for her artwork on eBay, she also helps her daughter track down and purchase Pez dispensers, which are displayed in her room as if sculptures in a museum gallery.
Hess Toy Truck

(buy it now price, $64.99)

Weinstock’s younger child, 6-year-old son Ryder, is also a collector, of Hess toy trucks. He is already an experienced eBay bidder—and winner of numerous auctions.