A pair of Houston artists have really spruced up what’s left of the interior of this former beauty parlor on Dowling St. in the Third Ward. Funded in part by the Houston Arts Alliance, reports Glasstire, Robert Hodge and Phillip Pyle II bought secondhand furniture, wallpaper, knick-knacks, framed photographs of JFK, MLK, Jr., and JC (Jesus Christ, that is) and a rug for this crumbling shell of a building at Dowling and Stuart near the Project Row Houses, turning it into an temporary installation they’re calling “Beauty Box.”

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That’s the view of the open house from Dowling; it teeters on the block bound by Dowling, Francis, Stuart, and Bastrop, south of Emancipation Park and the late Bert Long’s “Field of Vision” installation; on the corner is that insert-a-potty shotgun shack from InHouse OutHouse.

Below: The doorway opening to “Beauty Box.” Through it you can see the side of the Rice Building Workshop’s ZeRow House.

Glasstire’s Paula Newton writes that the installation will be up through August. Apparently, it’s already fostered some neighborhood interaction: “On the second night after installation,” she writes, “a homeless man slept on the couch. On the fourth night, 30 people showed up to screen a movie.”

• Welcome Home: Houston Artists Transform Empty Lot into Third Ward Living Room [Glasstire]
• ZeRow House [Rice School of Architecture]
• Previously on Swamplot: Inserting Bathroom B into House Slot A, What Emancipation Park Might End Up Looking Like, Bert Long, 1940-2013, Row House Duplexes: 60 Percent Occupied, Back Porches Half Done

Photos: Allyn West