Who is K/LLER?
M: Yeah way weirder than we do now.
Michael: My name is Michael Miller (the LLER), I make jewelry with Katie Maguire deGuzman (the K).
K: Michael had a short faux hawk, that was always bleached down the middle. And she was always sewing up her ears with all kinds of crazy threads.
Katie: Just deGuzman. M: Just deGuzman. So congrats on your first year. Pretty exciting. K&M: Thanks! We're stoked. Lets do some of the basic stuff, how long have you two known each other?
M: I would run a needle and thread though the holes in my ears and it would create a pattern. K: And I had white girl dreads. Not hippy dreads, more punk rock dreads, though I wasnt punk rock. They were multi colored and I wore shoes the size of volkswagon beatles. M: You always had hover crafts on!
M: We've known each other since 2002. We met at Parsons through a friend.
K: Fuckin huge shoes. The bigger the better.
K: I think it was Becka, my best friend, she said, "You seen that Michael?" She was dating the hot tech. So all the girls were like, who's that girl dating the hot tech? 'cause all the gays were trying to get on him.
When did that end?
Did you guys look weird back then?
K: After college. After I growed up. Once I finally decided you needed to kinda look pretty.
K: Yeah. My first apartment was in the west village with like a thousand girls. M: I lived in Queens with my sister. I didnt have a bedroom. I slept on a lofted bed in the living room with my little dog, Harlow. I like hearing stuff like that. Because everybody starts the same way, you know? M: Yeah, it was awesome though, living with my sister. You two weren't jewelry majors at school were you? How'd you two get into jewelry? K: No. We studied furniture design, and I did a semester learning silversmithing in Glasgow. Early on, I got a job with a goldsmith and that's when I really began learning something about the jewelry making process. I also did some bench work for Philip Crangi.
You guys were in the city at the time?
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