Dream Catcher

Ben Ospital opened Modern Appealing Clothing in the early 1980s, with sister Chris and mother Jeri. More than a retail space, MAC has evolved into a kind of salon for San Franciscans who drop by to shop, chat, and hang out amid artifacts such as a Bernard Maybeck drafting table and a rug woven by Valerie Gnadt from Ben’s old suits and dress shirts. A longtime supporter of local artists (he’s on the board of the Headlands Center for the Arts), the self-described “hunter-and-gatherer” has never stopped braking for flea markets and thrift shops – mixing his gleanings with gallery pieces and whatever ephemera happen to catch his eye.

Your home is filled with wonderful objects that are arrayed by theme, material, and more ethereal systems. Do you consider yourself a collector?
More like an obsessive! Or a style-centric Margaret Mead wannabe. I went to the San Francisco Art Institute in the ’70s, and I’m fascinated by the compulsion of artists to look at things over and over, and to keep creating, just as the collector must keep collecting. As I started acquiring pieces by my Institute friends, I became immersed in their processes and materials, and made a connection with the kinds of things I was finding in flea markets and hardware stores. 

You have piles of books everywhere, a table by William Passarelli made out of stacked books, and trompe l’oeil books by Steve Wolfe, who is known for his painstakingly hand-wrought recreations of the classics. It’s very meta in here.
Yes, I am insanely attracted to the idea of collecting in multiples — the objects seem to converse amongst themselves. It’s all part of the compulsion. And I tried bookshelves once, but found them too confining; piles work better.

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