I named the site after Kuslansky Electrical Supply, a family business founded in 1923 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, that closed its doors in 1964. It began as a metal-plating company and later became a wholesale and retail electrical supply store.

Inside the entrance was a small customer space with a plywood counter across its far side, its surface burnished by the accumulated history of countless exchanges. Behind the counter, rows of metal shelves stretched the length of the store, stocked with electrical parts and coils of wire. To the right, a doorway opened into the lighting showroom next door.

I can still recall the oily smell of BX cable, clattering as it was dragged across the diamond-plate floor worn smooth from decades of use. My father would spool the cable out from a giant wooden drum in the cold loading bay in back, then cut it to length against a measuring system of faded yellow paint marks. I remember the endless stocking and restocking of electrical parts, classified, ordered and displayed.

But for me, the real magic was crossing from the industrial world of wire and metal into the showroom of lights, where glittering chandeliers, floor lamps, and wall sconces formed a frozen constellation. And along one wall were O-gauge Lionel trains, suspended in time, yet to me, always waiting for departure, their miniature passengers poised for passage.

I named the site Kuslansky Electric to not only to honor my family and its business, but the world that surrounded it: my father and uncles calling orders across the store, the store’s legendary deli parties, and customers they knew by name lingering at the counter to schmooze.

Years later I realized how deeply that world informed my sensibility as an artist, and before I had the visual language for it, I understood that light could shape atmosphere, that objects could carry drama, and that space and current could feel alive.