Sometimes artists experiment with new materials and things get weird. Other times, artists do weird things and experiments end up smelling like French fries. One of Thing Thing’s first experiments involved deep frying recycled plastic in vegetable oil to its melting point and molding it to cardstock models. It worked, and the result became a prototype for the rotationally molded plastic pillow lamp they created for Nora’s Culture Lab collaboration. The collective chose their name by creating a big funny list with a short list of rules: no pretentious acronyms, and they could not use the word atelier. Their friend Vivian liked Thing Thing the best, and it stuck. They envision design enthusiasts, local art supporters, and tourists in Detroit enjoying their product. They all eat dope meals for breakfast, and believe in the work of their extremely talented fellow artists, makers and musicians in Detroit, including Kresge, Detroit Soup, O.N.E. Mile, Oakland Avenue Artists Coalition, MOCAD, WDET and the Knights Foundation. They know some cool secret spots hidden along the river, too. You can see their colorful creation at Nora, just don’t try to dip it in ketchup.

Thing Thing will be hosting a Meet the Artist Event on November 10 from 5pm-7pm at Nora.