A selection from Chavetta's collage work. "Up until a couple of years ago I hadn’t shown my personal work to more than five people. I never intended for it to be seen. At some point, though, I decided to create a web gallery for my personal work — maybe to challenge myself, to see how strong or vulnerable I was. Clicking 'Post' was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done," Chavetta says.

Joseph Cornell. Chavetta cites a slew of assemblage artists as having inspired his personal work: the Russian constructivist Gustav Klutsis, contemporaries like Eva Sun-Sil Han and Thomas Schostok, and Cornell, the early 20th-century American artist who created boxed pastiches from found objects, like his Untitled (Soap Bubble set), shown above.

Cornell’s 1948 Untitled (Cockatoo and Corks). An accomplished sculptor and filmmaker as well, Cornell had no formal training and worked primarily as a textile salesman. “His work makes me feel comfortable about being part of the art scene and making art without ever having formally trained as an artist,” Chavetta says.

Bruce Conner. “I love the darkness in his work,” says Chavetta of the late Bay Area artist’s Surrealist-inflected assemblages of ladies’ stockings, broken dolls, fur, feathers, fringe, and the like. “Looking at his pieces helped me understand how to appropriate materials and combine found objects in a successful way.”

Conner’s St. Valentine’s Day Massacre/Homage to Errol Flynn, 1960. For a time, the artist actually lived in the house just behind Chavetta’s. “I regret having never introduced myself to him," he says.

Non-Format. This Norwegian-Brit graphic design duo, based in Oslo and Minneapolis, has worked together as a team on opposite ends of the world since 2000. “They do incredibly fresh things with type and amazing compositions with ink and water,” says Chavetta. “Their work is a great mix of organic and inorganic. A lot of people try to imitate them, but they’re the new classic. They determine the look of things.”

Cellina von Mannstein. “She’s raunchy and dirty and in your face, but she never crosses the line into crass,” says Chavetta of the Milan-based photographer and Terry Richardson protégée. “I only wish I could take photos like that and use them in my work.”

Fabien Baron. “As a student, I had seen David Carson and Stefan Sagmeister’s work and thought, ok, great. And then when I saw Fabien Baron’s, I was blown away. I realized you can be huge but also invisible. You don’t have to have a trademark. From design to furniture to photography, you look at his work and you don’t know who did it. It’s just good work that doesn’t need a name. It’s what I’d like to be in life.”

Moon missions / NASA photography. A self-described database and library junkie, Chavetta has made extensive use of NASA’s vast internet archive, most recently for his Moon Men exhibition, on view through February 7 at Chicago’s 360See gallery. “It’s not, like, renderings of a supernova. These are astronauts with Hasselblads strapped to their chests. It’s all subdivided into hi-res TIFF files, and it belongs to all of us. I spend most of my time doing research, and this is a goldmine.”

Confederate Motorcycles. Chavetta has long been obsessed with engineering — his grandfather was a diesel engine mechanic — and he marvels over the economy of these limited production bikes. “Most people think a cool bike has to have like fat tires and all this plastic. But it doesn’t have to be a chopper. This is just a minimal gorgeous piece of machinery. There’s nothing in this bike that’s not supposed to be there. It reminds me of how an engineer would design a building.”

Antony Micallef. Chavetta is drawn to the darkness in the British painter’s work — “He goes to the place nobody wants to go” — but he’s also inspired by the 34-year-old’s technique. “There’s a lot of detail with very minimal knifestrokes and a lot of detail without having to use color. He evokes a reaction in people. In my work, I try to make people react with seemingly simple compositions.”

The inspiration wall in Chavetta’s studio.

A selection of Chavetta's work. “When I design, the idea is that everyone will interpret that information in the same way,” says Chavetta. “The opposite happens with my collages — they have no functional purpose, they are personal. People can interpret them any way they want.”