So the story behind Ruinous Revived,
My name is Jess Howe and I am the Ruinous Revived.
I spent the majority of my formative years exploring various different areas from environmental science to painting, to graphic design, to photography and so on. Every step taught me something new but, I felt this odd emptiness that I hadn't quite found my path yet, despite the joy of exploring my voice in art.
While studying interior design at the Fashion Institute of Technology I felt something so thrilling in the exhausting, endless study of space revival. I fell for the idea of positively affecting someone’s everyday life by adjusting their surroundings in either total deconstruction, or just a simple perfect added touch. The fact that I, one person, could use my power as a designer to affect the world by focusing on sustainable designs had me feeling as though I had truly found my place in the world.
Despite awakening this new side of my artistic soul, the slight odd feeling of emptiness came back. I began pursuing my intellectual passion but my desire for physical, hands on work had begun to feel malnourished. After years of slow progression preparing for a future I knew nothing of, I needed a big step… no, a whopping leap towards anything.
Did this whopping leap come about browsing through Craigslist? YUP. 'Need 'em gone this week or going to the dump' I read on a listing of a slightly outdated set of barstools. Looking at all the items that others began to see as worthless in their own lives, I saw endless possibilities for a new purpose, either in the same form or by taking on a new and improved form. Why can't we simply revive the potentially ruinous mounds of trash that wasteful consumerism, trends, and fads have led to? This idea of reincarnation in terms of home décor and furnishings satisfied me to new ends.
With that notion, I began refinishing and repurposing everything within reach. I dove in head first and humbled myself more times than I can count learning through mistakes. I started with the crappy secondhand pieces until I could truly be trusted with the real antique treasures. For that summer, all I knew was sandpaper, the smell of musty old furniture, and a coffee stained sketchpad filled with ideas of how to make something outdated fit into the modern world. Humbled, with blood, sweat, tears, sawdust, and rusty screws, I felt so damn alive. My back will never be the same but, oh man… I felt ALIVE.
Three years later, I found the guts to make it a real business and I opened my first storefront. What it means to be the Ruinous Revived has been an endless adaption eleven years after my hand laid on that computer mouse browsing craigslist. Today, Ruinous Revived means being unafraid of the bold and finding joy in life from your home to how you style yourself. It is breathing, wearing, and living with nostalgia because everything deserves a second chance at a life where it’s truly treasured.
