COMMENT OF THE DAY: UH . . . HELLO? “I would love to know more about the giant brick hand that greets you as you drive east of Lyons. Does anyone know what its origin is?” [RWBoyd, commenting on Hello from the Fifth]
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Tag: Art
After taking in this weekend’s open house at the thriving shipping-container art colony ensconced in Stephen and Thedra Cullar-Ledford’s Independence Art Studios at 419 Janisch Rd. between Shepherd and Yale (above), fine-arts hound Robert Boyd pokes around a few more streets in Independence Heights — and finds a lot more art lurking in the neighborhood’s big lots. Boyd writes: “I think we can say that this is a little hidden art neighborhood. And if it follows the pattern of other art neighborhoods like Montrose and Rice Military, in 25 years or so, it will be full of expensive townhomes.”
- Mysterious North Houston Art Colony Discovered [The Great God Pan Is Dead]
- Studios [Independence Art Studios]
Photos: Robert Boyd. Sculpture: Jonathan Clark
WHAT REALLY MAKES IT ALL WORTHWHILE Meanwhile, Laura Lark is hoping that Houston’s 2 new art fairs don’t overshadow this town’s “wacky, welcoming” feeling: “Because, honestly, the coming of the first art fair in Houston reminds me a bit of my neighborhood, and I’m a tad conflicted. I live in Montrose. It’s a little funky, but it used to be REALLY funky, with drag queens and artist studios and a crack house on the other side of my fence. In the past several years it’s become gentrified. Instead of the charming fellows who used to steal magazines like Big Black Butt and moan while jerking off until I sprayed them down with the hose, I now have a couple from Katy whose friends roar at the game on the outdoor big screen TV and toss Smirnoff Ice bottles into my yard. I’d get in trouble if I hosed them down, which totally pisses me off. The people behind me are soulless jerks and a lot less interesting than even the worst-dressed transvestite, but my property value’s quadrupled, so I don’t complain as much as I should. So let’s hope, as an art community, we can maintain our character and keep the imported assholes to a minimum while still raising awareness of our fabulousness and the market value of works sold. That would make a Houston art fair, like the city itself, worth it.” [Glasstire; previously on Swamplot]
Glasstire correspondent Beth Secor tries to get a handle on the first-ever Houston Fine Art Fair, held over the weekend at the George R. Brown Convention Center: “One of the oddest places I visited on Friday was LewAllen Galleries of New Mexico, where strangely enough, its booth was manned by a chair, which seemed to be selling other kinds of chairs to what I assume was a clientele consisting solely of tables. I was too intimidated to clear up what may have been a complete misunderstanding of the situation, having once been severely berated by an Eames Chaise Lounge, after accidentally referring to its Ottoman as a Suleiman Turk.”
More than 10,000 visitors and sales in the millions (one gallery sold 2 pieces for a total of $1.7 million, according to one report) mean the event will return next year.
- The Houston Art Fair [Glasstire]
- Houston Fine Art Fair Live Blog [Glasstire]
- Houston Fine Art Fair meets 10K visitor goal [Houston Chronicle]
- Saturday Art Fair Peoples and Friday Afternoon at the Houston Fine Arts Fair [The Great God Pan Is Dead]
Photos: Bill Davenport and Kelly Klaasmeyer (soup)
Or Thomas Kinkade parody toilet paper, to be more precise. After her “Parody of Light” exhibition earlier this year at Diverseworks, Houston artist Patricia Hernandez has taken the next step: selling her signature Thomas Kinkade-plus-freaky-clown prints and clownish collectibles online. Featured item: “The most expensive toilet paper you’ll ever buy,” featuring repeated prints of a Thomas Kinkade original landscape, retouched by the master artist herself to include a squatting clown — presumably going about its business (see detail in also-available color print version, above). Price: just $15 per roll.
Sculptor Dan Havel sends in photos of the construction he and fellow demo artist Dean Ruck have been working on for months in a new pocket park at 3705 Lyons Ave. More than a month before its debut as the backdrop for a community concert (yes, that’s a stage poking out from the front), Havel says their project is “substantially complete,” though there are still a few more details to fill in, including stairs for the stage and some landscaping. Working from a ready-to-be-knocked-down house from a couple miles northeast at 3012 Erastus St., Havel and Ruck added, ahem, a whole lot of support to the interior, as these photos taken earlier in the summer show:
A reader sends in photos of several signs posted near the corner of Spring and Goliad streets, in the shadow of the 45 overpasses not too far north of Downtown. And there they are, like halved pears, stripped skinless, golden in heavy syrup. Our tipster wants to know who the artist is. (And really, don’t you?) Also, if this qualifies as . . . graffoetry? Grafauxetry?
More First Ward sign findings below:
CY TWOMBLY, 1928-2011 
Famed scribbler and smudger Cy Twombly died earlier today in Rome after a battle with cancer. He was 83. A ceiling painting created by the shy former army cryptologist for the Louvre opened to the public just last year. In 1995, a permanent exhibition of his works opened in Renzo Piano’s quiet addition to the Menil Collection at 1501 Branard St. in Montrose. [Arts Beat] Photo: Stephen Bridges
After a 3-year delay, construction is ready to begin on the new Sicardi Gallery at 1506 West Alabama, catty-corner from the Houston Center for Photography at Mulberry St. and across the street from the Menil parking lot. A groundbreaking ceremony was held yesterday. There’s been at least one design change from Brave Architecture’s earlier versions of the project: The latest rendering (above) shows a large window in the building’s formerly blank south-facing forehead, looking onto the parking lot in front.
- Previously on Swamplot: A New Sicardi Gallery Exhibit
Rendering: Brave Architecture
Patrons of the fast-paced arts, you have less than 55 hours left to fund the hotsheet action planned for Richwood Place’s Skydive exhibition space next month. In a somewhat compressed version of the typical summertime creative retreat, the converted home at 2041 Norfolk St. will play host to a stream of 50-something artists taking up residency — each of them for only an hour or 2 or 12, though. (That should be enough: With all the chit-chatting, hobnobbing, and strategic carousing, how much would you have expected an Elaine Bradford, Rachel Hecker, or any of the dedicated nappers of the NAP Church to get done in a couple of weeks at Yaddo, anyway?) The Houston Many Mini event follows a similar project that took place in Berlin a couple of years ago (the next is scheduled for Copenhagen). Slots for the week of July 10-16th appear to be all filled, but the Kickstarter project that’s hoping to pay for part of the exercise is currently stuck at less than half its fundraising goal.
- Houston Many Mini Residency [Many Mini]
- Many Mini Matching 10% and Many Mini Me [The Great God Pan Is Dead]
- Many Mini Residency: Houston [Kickstarter]
Photo of 2041 Norfolk St.: Skydive
JACK JOHNSON, STILL DRAWING THE CROWDS IN GALVESTON 
On the agenda for the next meeting of GRACE, the homeownership organization in charge of The Oaks housing development at 4300 Broadway in Galveston: A discussion of Earl Jones’s sculpture of former world heavyweight boxing champion and Galveston native Jack Johnson, carved out of the trunk of a subdivision oak tree killed by Hurricane Ike. Homeowners association President Frank Rivera has been campaigning to have the stature moved. His complaint: That the Johnson statue was bringing a stream of tourists and other visitors to the neighborhood, creating traffic and disrupting the peace. But a canvas of residents over the weekend by 2 housing authority board members turned up only 2 who said they didn’t want the sculpture. [Galveston County Daily News; background; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Click2Houston
BATTLE OF THE HOUSTON ART FAIRS Kelly Klaasmeyer scores the 2 rival events planned for this fall, all the while hoping that “a crop of completely unsanctioned peripheral shows and events will erupt and liven things up.”: “What Houston is getting are two temporary art malls. That’s what art fairs are, malls for art. They can be malls with good art or bad art but they are still malls. But, hey, I like shopping. And I’m not so idealistic that I’m going to pretend that art isn’t a commodity. And if they are good malls, then maybe more people will come to us for their art shopping needs. And maybe they will discover Houston artists to collect. Hopefully all the events for VIP collectors, ‘cocktail parties at collectors’ homes, special museum tours, viewings of corporate collections and on-site receptions’ will help the cause as well. But I’m not so gullible that I’m going to believe these are somehow civic events. (And they are by no means free to the public.) Oil is high now and Houston has money. Here come the carpetbagger-fair organizers.” [Glasstire]
- 2410 Cleburne St. [HAR]
Okay, well at least it’s a history of the mural version of the Shepard Fairey poster based on Mannie Garcia’s photo, painted back in February 2008 onto the West Alabama side of the former Obama campaign headquarters at 3710 Travis St. Candace Garcia’s photos show the mural as it appeared a few days after the 2008 election (top) and shortly after the President’s midterm shellacking — and the mural’s Midtown spattering — late last year (middle). The bottom photo shows the result of a little rehabilitation work completed late last week, clearly meant to cover up and gloss over all the wear and tear Obama’s image has suffered over the last several years, and put it in brighter shape for the 2012 election season.
- Hope Mural [YouTube]
- Obama Mural On Building Defaced [Click2Houston]
- Houston, We Have a “Splasher” – Obama Mural Defaced [Art Attack]
Photos: Candace Garcia
Included in the upgrades to the University of Houston’s Blaffer Art Museum, scheduled to be complete by the start of next year: an actual bathroom for visitors. Plus: a better elevator. If you’d rather take the stairs, you’ll have this new proboscis to pass through, on the building’s north face, wrapped in vertical bands of clear and textured channel glass. That sorta-Cullen Sculpture Garden-looking slanted wall-column thing supporting it, which architect Dan Wood of New York’s WORKac calls the “wallumn,” should help block the view of the loading dock. And it’ll frame a brand new entrance on that side, facing the unnamed street and parking lot in front of it that parallels Elgin. The $2 million renovation (Blaffer spokesperson Jeffrey Bowen says $1.75 million worth of pledges have already been raised) won’t increase the amount of gallery space, but it should make the institution more visible on campus and allow for more activity in the back courtyard it shares with the rest of the university’s fine-arts building:
