Right after Qiana Mestrich was born her mother was paging through a fashion magazine when an ad caught her eye. The advertisement (which Mestrich still has) was for Dupont’s new synthetic silk. “It was supposed to be this feminist fabric,” she explains. “It didn’t wrinkle, you didn’t have to iron it. It was a luxurious replacement for silk.” Even the name was cutting edge. “Dupont wanted a unique name that didn’t mean anything in any other language,” says Mestrich. “So a computerized combination of random letters created ‘Qiana.’”
It was the ‘70s—the height of the disco era—and the fabric could last all day, as upscale office attire and all-night, showing up in butterfly collar dress shirts popular on the dance floor. Mestrich’s mother had immigrated from Panama in 1969 and was working at a publishing house on Madison Avenue. “It was her dream to come to New York. My mother always had a lot of style and definitely saw the office as a place to dress up,” explains Mestrich. “She thought it was a great name and sounded pretty. So, there’s a sort of fashion origin story to me, which I think carries on through into some of my art.”
The fabric (“completely unbreathable,” notes Mestrich) went the way of bell-bottoms. However, the moment in time it captures—both for Mestrich personally and in the context of ‘70s-era New York—serves as a jumping-off point for understanding her provocative body of creative work. By mixing photography, letters, found objects, history’s ephemera, and obsolete office supplies, Mestrich weaves a rich tapestry from the profoundly personal, exploring diaspora, family, and how the world of work is (and decidedly is not) changing. Mestrich is the winner of CPW’s 2025 Saltzman Prize, which recognizes the extraordinary achievements of an emerging photographer. She will have an exhibition at CPW in 2026.
That ability to deftly weave such disparate elements—even banal ones like inter-departmental manila folders, mass produced dolls, and ‘70s “feminist” synthetic ware—into rich story telling is on display everywhere in the three-story home she shares with her husband, Joseph Cullen, and their children in West Saugerties.
Just as her practice mines overlooked objects to reveal both powerful personal stories and the vibrant, cross-cultural fabric of New York, Mestrich and Cullen took a neglected contemporary chalet and transformed it into their personal haven interwoven with art, family artifacts, and tangled elements of their heritage. “Our style could be described as Afro-modern,” Mestrich says. “It’s rooted in the Black Atlantic and the experiences of Black people navigating modernity.”
Salsa Dancing with Tom Jones
Both Cullen and Mestrich had deep connections to the Hudson Valley long before they made it their permanent home. Mestrich, who is half Croatian from her father’s side, was raised by her mother in Crown Heights, where she was exposed to both art and office life at a young age. Visits to the nearby Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Botanic Garden started early, but Mestrich credits her mother’s album collection with sparking her love of art. “My mother had a really great collection of albums, everything from Salsa music to Tom Jones to Michael Jackson,” she says. “I loved the images on the covers and I was also into fashion from an early age. “
Along with regular summertime visits to Panama, Mestrich and her mother visited friends in the Hudson Valley often and she eventually attended high school in Troy where she developed an interest in photography. “I was really into fashion and magazines and thought I wanted to do that at some point,” she says. Her first job, however, was filing at her mother’s publishing firm on Madison Avenue. After college, she parlayed both her creative interests and her office experience into a job at the Empire State Building working for the online fashion brand FUBU. She gained experience in writing and photography, as well as front-end web development.
Cullen also comes from a rich cultural background. Born in England to an Irish mother and Nigerian father, he grew up in the country’s foster care system. Despite his difficult start, Cullen created a hybrid career similar to Mestrich by merging technology with creativity; working as an IT professional while writing screenplays and developing hands-on skills in his free time. Cullen first came to the Hudson Valley as a child to visit relatives who operated a motel in East Durham. As an adult, he moved to New York City, where he met Mestrich.
From the Ground Up
In 2018, with two young children, the couple decided to move out of New York City and stumbled onto their 2.5-acre property. Built in 1989, the 1,600-square-foot home had been abandoned for over a year. “It was in foreclosure when we found it,” says Mestrich. “It had also flooded, so it needed a lot of work done.” Still, they loved the sense of privacy offered by the encroaching forest and the location was beautiful. “The view of Blue Mountain from our deck and bedroom is stunning, especially in winter,” says Mestrich. Soon after, the couple bought the house but kept the family based in Brooklyn while making it habitable for full-time living.
Cullen did most of the work fixing up the home himself, often driving up on Saturday mornings and working until late in the night. Cullen had some carpentry skills and plenty of resourcefulness, but not all the tools or skills to complete the work, so he called on a friend who had who had built his own home in Orange County. “John came by with everything I needed as well as tips and encouragement to tackle the project,” says Cullen. “He also gave me a weekend lesson on how to use his miter saw and circular saw, and, importantly, how to make cuts without losing fingers.”
Burst copper pipes in the apartment-style ground floor had led to black mold throughout the home, so Cullen ripped out all the home’s drywall, baseboards, and window molding. After hanging new doors, he refinished the ground-floor entrance and bedroom for the couple’s son, as well as adapted a former den into a second bedroom for their daughter.
Cullen also rebuilt the ground-floor bathroom, choosing a mix of classic subway tiles and subway-inspired detailing. “The downstairs bathroom really just morphed into what it became, which is a tiny New York City subway platform,” says Cullen. “Only without the graffiti or mental-health issues.” Cullen, who was new to laying tile, missed a space, which gave him the chance to be creative. “I made a mistake with the spacing but added a piece of Lego to the grout,” he explains. “We might have the only tile work in America that incorporates Lego into the design.” He found subway-themed wallpaper to tie the room together. “I found a wallpaper influencer online,” says Cullen. “The downstairs bathroom became our nod to New York City.”
Creative Carpentry
The home’s main floor includes an open-concept living room, dining room, and kitchen. Cathedral ceilings and multiple floor-to-ceiling windows flood the airy space with light and offer views to the forest. An oversized deck further expands the living space. “The biggest challenge in the living room was the large bay window with seven-by-four feet of glass held together by only four nails,” explains Cullen. He was able to build a new box frame and match the style of the house. The couple also renovated the home’s kitchen, adding black granite counters and a suite of new appliances.
Cullen removed a Juliet balcony and rickety railings from the third floor’s lofted primary bedroom suite. Inspired by a Craigslist find, Cullen reworked the primary bathroom into a tailored space. “The hand-built Malaysian chest of drawers in red with black script was an incredible find,” says Cullen. “With a little bit of carpentry on the drawers and a hole for the pipes, the chest became the bathroom’s vanity.” Cullen added Pergo floating floors and remotely controlled lighting, then painted the space limousine black for a dramatic touch.
Past Remnants, Future Materials
By 2024 the home was ready for full-time residence. The shift to remote work enabled Mestrich to convert her 20-year career in SEO marketing to a hybrid model and Cullen got a job in Kingston. The family moved to Saugerties, and have since filled the home with a colorful mix of art and artifacts. A collection of Nigerian masks line one wall; photos and paintings line another.
Hanging from a mannequin in a hallway corner, mixed in with beaded jewelry and knitting, are a few printed Qiana scarves. “Materials and texture are integral to my artistic language,” explains Mestrich. “These are the threads that connect personal autobiography to broader narratives, weaving together the synthetic and the organic, the fantasy and the raw reality of lived experience.”
This article appears in August 2025.
enquiries; homeinthehudson@gmail.com