A year later she commissioned him to design herВ own home, an 1830s farmhouse also in Springs, in a high-bohemian mash-up of 18th- and 19th-century antiques and flea market finds. He improvised, using curtains made from dead-stock fabric panels and other found items, and added as a focal piece, a driftwood chandelier.Д¬indy Sherman visited and was captivated. His father, a forensic psychiatrist and second-generation Baltic Jewish immigrant, was more keenly drawn to the clean-lined midcentury spareness meant to obliterate theВ darkness of his European past.ДЄbout a decade ago, one of those people, the singer and songwriter Jenni Muldaur, asked him to decorate her summer house in Springs, a hamlet just north of East Hampton, lodging himВ in an unused shed and paying him $9,000,В a vastВ sumВ to him at the time. The designer grew up in Burlington, Vt., his mother an Irish Catholic psychotherapist with a predilection for old china and handed-down furnishings. CottonвЂ™s вЂњcareer-long proclivity for exploding clichГ©s and artificial boundaries - between past and present, high and low, intellectual engagement and visceral sensation,вЂќ his eclecticismВ a legacy of his upbringing. вЂњIn my mind,вЂќ he said in his studio last month, вЂњI was that lady, but I was also her gay friends.вЂќ

вЂњHer gay cohort has sought to uplift her with donated decorations,вЂќ Mr. retained the remnants of her racy, haute bohemian past: chinoiserie wallpaper, a skeletal four-poster bed and a leopard-print rug. He provided her with a back story, writing, вЂњAs with most of us, some of her hardship was self-inflicted, and some encroached upon her at the cruel insistence of the world.вЂќ Her refuge at the top floor of an S.R.O.

вЂњI donвЂ™t have a style,вЂќ he likes to insist. Well regarded for his uncontrived, discreetly subversive aesthetic, his style can veer from homespun (think cottagecore with a Ralph Lauren sheen) to coolly austere with strategic bursts of color. He had a string of odd jobs - waiting tables selling decorative gewgaws at John Derian whipping slipcovers, pillows and fake works of art for Domino magazine and designing tabletop ceramics and his own custom furniture - before arriving at a high point in what he considers a journey of self-discovery. Cotton was sitting in his white-lacqueredВ studio on West 26th Street, the space punctuated with Eames chairs, an Italian marquetry desk and vibrantly colorful artworks by friends, and reminisced about his zigzagging ascent.

HeвЂ™s changed me so that IвЂ™m much more attuned to quality.вЂќ Yuskavage, whose Manhattan apartment he turned into a gray-on-gray haven, a restful backdrop for her art collection. вЂњIвЂ™m an artist, but I also think that heвЂ™s an artist,вЂќ said Ms.

Leopard print window panels