BAR: INTERSTATE KITCHEN & BAR
Interstate Kitchen & Bar, parked at 901 W. 10th Ave., gives the Santa Fe Drive arts district a funky hangout. It feels like a mod garage with a clean floor. Not even the spoons are greasy. And the airy space is a welcome addition to this emerging boulevard of galleries and theaters. Inside, the hostess stand is a vintage television. In the bar area, you can sit inside the rusty red cab of a pickup truck. Stools, two couches and a few high-tops fill the bar, two dining rooms welcome you with aluminum chairs and tables topped with wrapping paper. The big windows look out onto Santa Fe Drive — and the side of Bud’s Muffler, a real shop, where artifice meets reality.
GRILLED: LINDSEY HOUSEL
Lindsey Housel, 32, is the woman in charge of making the Denver Art Museum a hangout for the under-40 crowd. And a big part of the job is producing the popular series “Untitled,” a stew of bands, DJs, plays, detours, art and performances that fill the museum the final Friday evening of the month, January through October. The first one of 2011 is 6-10 Friday night. Housel was raised in Portland, Ore., but left town to attend Colorado College and study art history. She graduated and moved with her boyfriend, Matt Merkow, to Durango, where she worked in a pharmacy, a flower shop, a craft store and a rug emporium. Then came an internship at the Denver Art Museum, which morphed into a full-time job in 2001. She took off two years for grad school and returned to the museum’s fold in 2007. She orders a Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale, no glass.
BH: Tell me about your work at the museum.
Housel: My job is primarily to deliver and support really great experiences to visitors. We’re always trying to foster personal, meaningful experiences with art and ideas.
BH: You’re best known for the “Untitled” series.
Housel: I was here from its beginnings. We’ve done it for four years. We have a variety of things to do, throughout the entire complex. It’s a collaboration with the creative community of Denver. It’s tough being at an art museum as a young person. You learn throughout your life that the museum is a place where you are supposed to keep quiet and keep your hands in your pockets. But the things in a museum are so alive. They tell stories, they are controversial. It’s really about life, and you shouldn’t have to change who you are in order to visit a museum.
BH: And who is “Untitled” for?
Housel: We focus on 18- to 35-year-olds, but I get uncomfortable tagging it with a demographic because it’s really about offering choices to people and giving people a chance to curate their own experience.
BH: So it’s more fun than going to a bar.
Housel: Heck yeah.
BH: What about social media? You are very involved in that.
Housel: We talk to people. It sounds simple, but that’s what we do. We use it to have conversations about things we otherwise wouldn’t get to. People don’t have to go through all the layers to talk to a person at the museum.
BH: Do you have a favorite museum?
Housel: I don’t even know how to answer that.
BH: Then talk to me about the Denver Art Museum.
Housel: The DAM to me is the best example of a museum that truly values its visitors. The work we do is always in pursuit of offering as many choices in as many ways for people to engage with us.
BH: When I travel I always go to museums, but museums really make me tired.
Housel: Well, it’s called “museum legs.” You are walking so slow in a museum, you shuffle along, so the lactic acid builds up in your legs, and you get tired. Totally true. We all know about “museum legs.”
BH: I always thought it was about me. I am shocked that my experience is not unique to me.
Housel: No, it’s not you. It’s everyone. That’s why we put in couches and give people places to sit and give people things to do. But I am sure there are things unique to you. Are you a label reader?
BH: Yes.
Housel: Well, that’s unique.
BH: Is there a type of art you have never been able to connect with?
Housel: I think “connect” is an interesting word. I don’t really connect with super- religious Italian Renaissance works, but I love them on an aesthetic level. It just doesn’t speak to me in a personal way.
BH: What’s your greatest fear?
Housel: I have this awful feeling that I am going to die from a lightning strike.
BH: What trait don’t you like in yourself?
Housel: I get nervous in social situations.
BH: Are you nervous now?
Housel: No. Not right this second.
BH: What is your greatest extravagance?
Housel: I am obsessed with perfume.
BH: Are you wearing some now?
Housel: Yes. It’s vanilla.
BH: It’s very subtle.
Housel: And I just got my hair cut for this interview. I’ll admit it. I was looking a little ragged. I hadn’t gotten a haircut in about six months.
BH: So you’re not obsessed with looks and fashion.
Housel: No. But I am obsessed with smells.
BH: Have you read “Perfume”?
Housel: No. And I know that’s a crime. So now I will. It’s scary, right?
BH: Right.
Housel: I don’t need that. But I have lots and lots of little samples of perfumes. In fact, I brought some. I always have them with me. All these tiny sniffers.
BH: Do you have a good vocabulary for smells?
Housel: Yes, I think I do. It’s a lot like talking about art.
BH: But museums are scentless.
Housel: Well, not really.
BH: What do they smell like?
Housel: There is a kid smell, I’ll tell you that. People who have kids know what I’m talking about. And different rooms in the museum have different smells and a lot of that is based on the materials the objects are made with. Really old paintings have an old-book smell with a little bit of chemical in it.
BH: What is your current state of mind?
Housel: Content. And a little berserk at the same time.
BH: On what occasion would you lie?
Housel: I definitely lie, and I do it to protect people’s feelings. I realize that it may not be something I should do. It shouldn’t be up to me if someone has an emotional reaction to me.
BH: Who is the greatest love of your life?
Housel: Matt Merkow. He’s a computer engineer, so I always joke that we have nothing to talk about. I’m art and he’s science. What’s great is our approaches to thinking about things are as opposite as you can get, so that yields a lot of interesting solutions to problems.
BH: Do you want to get married?
Housel: What’s important to me is just to have a secure long-term relationship that is free to grow and change as we do. But I felt it would be nice to get married so that my grandparents and my parents and our families could celebrate that moment with us. Right now it’s just the two of us who enjoy it.
BH: When and where are you happiest?
Housel: I am most happy in a rain forest in Oregon. That’s where I feel my most true self.
BH: Where would you most like to live?
Housel: Prague.
BH: What’s your most precious possession?
Housel: Oh. Ugh. I mean, who cares about this about me?
BH: People are interested in other people.
Housel: OK. My most embarrassing and treasured possession is a guitar pick from a Nine Inch Nails concert that Trent Reznor used. That’s my secret thing. I love Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails.
BH: What kind of music do you like?
Housel: Right now I am in love with Irma Thomas. I like older country music. I love Snake Rattle Rattle Snake.
BH: What do you consider the lowest depths of misery?
Housel: Being a penguin. Just think about it.
BH: Did you see “Night at the Museum”?
Housel: I fell asleep in that movie. There is something about Ben Stiller that puts me to sleep.
BH: Where do you shop?
Housel: I like pretty things, but I do not like to shop. It’s expensive and time-consuming.
BH: What word or phrase do you overuse?
Housel: I swear a lot.
BH: What’s your greatest regret?
Housel: I am too young to have regrets.
Interview conducted, condensed and edited by Bill Husted: 303-954-1486 or bhusted@denverpost.com.
