Interview by Laura Todd
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I’m an LA native, born and raised. I'm three generations deep in Los Angeles and I've been living in Silver Lake for 25 years. I'm a producer by trade, but I'm an artist when I'm not working. My husband and I own a production company. I do music videos and he does commercials and rock documentaries.
How would you describe your decorating sense?
DD: First of all, my goal in life is to cover up all things white. I want it to be any other colour — pink, green, yellow, anything. Even my hair is multi-coloured. I hate this movement of sparse, minimalist stuff. That’s just so not me. I have a very eclectic style. I pull stuff from all over the world. I definitely will stop on the side of the road and pick up the three-legged chair.
Where does your motivation come from?
I like to be surrounded by art. It just lifts me up everywhere I go in the house. When people come and visit it, if they have even a tiny interest in it, they go crazy. There's something to see everywhere.
Can you describe the house?
Everyone calls my house the Pink House because it’s all painted pink on the outside. It's the only pink house on the hill. Even the napkins and the towels by the pool are pink. Whenever I’m talking to my kids or my friends we’ll say, ‘let’s just meet at the Pink House.’
Each room has a different theme and a different colour and all the rooms have names. There’s the Italian Room, the blue room is the Ganesh Room, the bathroom is the Jungle Room. My living room is the Jesus Room. It has a collection of, I don't know, 700 Jesus photos that I collected from all over Los Angeles. The kitchen is entirely dedicated to Day of the Dead.
You’re really inspired by Day of the Dead and religious art, where does that come from?
I am, a lot of my art has a core religious and spiritual aspect and I'm super into Day of the Dead. Growing up in LA, I’ve always loved that type of style. I love the idea of celebrating your ancestry. I recently finished a Day of the Dead beaded table out of Mardi Gras beads. It took me four years to make it — I started with only one bead in the centre. I was like, what am I going to make? I had a whole box of these Mardi Gras beads from a shoot. Four years later I’m like, wow, this is incredible.
Has your decorating style always been the same?
It has, my very first place was this all-white apartment above Hollywood Boulevard. When I moved in I stayed up all night painting all the walls. When the building manager had to come by to fix something in the bathroom he saw it and said: ‘you realize you painted in here and we're not gonna give you back your deposit?’ I was like, I don't care about my deposit! I'm not going to live in a white house cause of the deposit. How am I going to live my life? I told him, I don't care. You just go ahead and keep my deposit. I'm going to paint everything in there.
Do you and your husband have the same sense of style?
No! When we first got together I told him: you don't get to say anything about the house or about my art. He’s tall, I'm short. He's fat, I’m skinny. He's bald, I have the longest hair in the world. He’s winter, I'm summer. But we both agree on rock and roll.
