Pitter Patter Is Putting One Foot In Front Of The Other
The Brooklyn-based artist is finding creative independence in making new cultural artifacts that relate to personal style, identity, and the era of self-commodification.
Published
For Issue 04: Hacking It, Byline teamed up with Urban Outfitters and Dickies to highlight individuals who have paved their own paths and unlocked new levels in their respective industries. These creators defy the system by making their own rules, and in other words, they're Hackers.
I walked up the street on a crisp autumn afternoon to find Levi Pitters, the artist known as Pitter Patter, perched on a stoop outside of his Bushwick studio. He was wearing a striped button-down shirt and matching necktie, with a pair of red-framed glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose. After walking through a long corridor of artist studios filled with curtains, spray paint canisters and cardboard, we found our way into a well-lit, equally crowded space in the back—one that Levi shares with his longtime friend Gabriel Rozzell. The room was filled with paintings and post-it notes, bags of plywood, to-do lists, and legs—lots and lots of legs.
Gleaning what you can from the internet, it’s apparent that Levi is equipped with a peculiar sense of humor. He has a brazen way of ingesting culture, experimenting with materials, and moving about the world. The 26-year-old budding artist is perhaps best known for his ongoing series of sculptures called Boot-legs: design objects that feature nothing more than shoes and calves, fixed to a small, round table top. The (quite literal) table legs are dressed in pants—leopard print, camouflage, khakis, denim, or slacks—and, most often, the feet will don a pair of sneakers, boots, or loafers. The flat surface atop the legs might even represent a torso: upholstered fabric stretches over the cushion, fashioned like overalls or t-shirts.