Heather Schwalb and Tristan Reginato

Heather Schwalb & Tristan Reginato
Musician and Artist, 17 and 18

“We live to cause a fucking ruckus,” declares 18-year-old multimedia artist Tristan Reginato of himself and his childhood friend and fellow artist, Heather Schwalb. “We’ve been tied to each other since we were in the womb, and we’re just really wild kids.” The pair grew up only seven blocks from each other, with Reginato in SoHo and Schwalb in Greenwich Village. Now, together, they are founding members of the nine-piece downtown teenage art collective Luck You, which prides itself on exuberant, media-blending works and most recently showed an exhibition of expressionistic paintings and ink drawings at Paris’s Colette this past summer. “I’m the musician of the collective,” explains 17-year-old Schwalb. “I play the guitar, the banjo, the dulcimer, and the harp, and really beautiful, really weird, soulful music.” Reginato is a sculptor, painter, welder, and sometimes saxophonist. “I’m taking a gap year because I want to learn more about welding and see and create things,” says Reginato, who graduated from high school last May. His best friend is still in her senior year. “Schwalb and I can’t be separated. We’re rare, free city kids.”

Photo: Heather Schwalb & Tristan Reginato in New York, October 2011. On him: Jeans: Zadig & Voltaire. Belt: What Goes Around Comes Around. On her: Jacket: G-star Raw. Dress: Prada. Earrings: I’m Jewel. Rings: Jelena Behrend.