Philadelphia Gay News: Professional Portraits, December 2007
Download Article (.pdf)The image of a light bulb turning on is synonymous with having a great idea. If that’s the case, then Warren Muller is a man full of wonderful ideas. Muller is a luminary who creates lighting sculptures from found, recycled and salvaged objects, he and his partner, RJ Thornburg, own Bahdeebahdu, and interior-design and light-sculpture gallery on Cherry Street. Those of you who have sat in the comfy chairs at Giovanni’s Room and read quietly under the light fixture on the second floor have experienced his work. Born in Bronx, N.Y., Muller is a longtime Philadelphia resident, though he and Thornburg recently bought a farmhouse in the Poconos.
PGN: What was it like growing up?
WM: I grew up in an Eastern-European Jewish neighborhood where everyone knew each other. I lived partly with my parents, partly with my grandparents. One of my fondest memories was shopping with my grandmother: I loved pulling the cart my parents owned a dry cleaners. Their store was in an Italian neighborhood and I spent a lot of time there working, delivering clothes to people, so I had a lot of cultural influences.
PGN: What was your favorite thing to do as a kid?
WM: I liked taking things apart and putting them back together. It could be anything. I just loved taking things apart. Sometimes I got in trouble, though, because I wasn’t able to figure out how to get something back together.
PGN: How was coming out?
WM: Gosh, that was a long time ago. It wasn’t easy. I’m 61 and when I was growing up, I felt that I was ostracized for who I was. My parents tried to send me to a psychiatrist to make me straight and that was a total disaster. To their dying days it was not something that they learned to celebrate. But I met and made my own family.
PGN: Where did you get your creative side?
WM: Hard to know. My grandfather was an ornamental ironworker and my father was an engraver, so I probably got it from his side.
PGN: Do you play any instruments?
WM: No; I sing, though. I’ve done a lot of gospel singing over the years, but now I mostly work with Keith Allen, the jazz musician. I do a drag character named Patsy Ratchet, and I sing with Keith and some his other musicians. Patsy is retired, but she’s had a number of comebacks1
PGN: Did you have formal training?
WM: I went to the Philadelphia College of Art and I have a degree in filmmaking and photography.
PGN: How did you start doing sculpture?
WM: While in the college, I met a dancer who had escaped from Berlin. I made a documentary film about his troupe, the Group Motion Dance Theater. I started taking classes from them and became a dancer with the company. While with the troupe, I met another dancer who was a ceramicist and we began to go out together. I started working with him in his shop. I was working with clay, but that’s was brought me into the area of doing sculpture. Then I started incorporating light into the sculpture. It’s been 35 years and quite journey transforming from one medium to another.
PGN: Have you ever had any electrical shocks?
WM: (Laughs.) No, not many. I’m pretty lucky with that. If I didn’t know about something I’d ask someone who did, instead of just trying to do it myself.
PGN: So tell me about your family.
WM: Most of my family is gone. My parents died about 30 years ago, and I don’t have any contact with my sister. My family is my chosen family. I’ve been with my partner R.J. for two years and we have two daughters. He was married before I met him and Evan is 22 and in her last year at Ursinus College studying African-American history ⎯ the girls are bi-racial so they are really interested in things that reflect that part of their culture ⎯ and Avery is 17. She lives with her mother and is finishing up high school. All my friends are artists and musicians, people who rally have a lust for life. I’m attracted to people who are excited about what they are committed to and don’t mind making a little trouble. Good trouble, I mean.
PGN: How has the parenting thing worked?
WM: We all get along pretty well; the girls are coming here for Christmas. Their mom comes up so that we’re all together. They are always challenges, but we really love each other and find a way to make things work.
PGN: What is the biggest reaction you’ve had to your art?
WM: Most people really like it. I mean the whole point of what I do is to bring pleasure to other people’s lives. The space that R.J. and I created, Bahdeebahdu, was designed as a place to celebrate life. I sometimes have people tell me that they’ve had a piece in their ho