Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/112455
Feats of (Very Good) Sweet Ruth Davis, an owner of the fabulous shop Found, calls this the Spherical Seat. We call it the Butt Cups seat. Either way, it���s totally cool. Made of concrete composite, it���s $485 at Found. CLAY Working from a Bastille workshop that once sheltered Napoleon���s silversmith, lifestyle powerhouse Astier De Villatte salutes the classical identity of the 17th and 18th centuries. The brand���s forte lies in its exquisitely designed ceramics by Beno��t Astier de Villatte and Ivan Pericoli, who revived an ancien technique called estampage to bathe black terracotta in a milky-white ���nish. This method ampli���es the unique character of the clay, leaving deliberate little hiccups and imperfections to make each one of kind. While the result may appear purloined from a Loire Valley farmhouse, the modern sensibility will ���lch its fair share of compliments in your Turtle Creek high-rise. Pictured: Composition Louis XV, charmingly all as one piece, $1,568. At Kuhl-Linscomb. Amy Adams Paul-Mart packaging, at Deborah Colton Gallery MOVE OVER, CRYSTAL BRIDGES We know Walmart heiress Alice Walton created a museum ��� the extraordinary Crystal Bridges in Bentonville, Arkansas ��� but what would she think of Paul-Mart, we wonder? Madcap collaborative provocateur Houston artist Paul Horn takes the Walmart experience as a starting point, then reprises it for the white cube (Deborah Colton Gallery, that is) to concoct a shopping extravaganza/ art-world happening. More than 20 local talents, including store designer Solomon Kane, are stocked at Paul-Mart, all using the media of plastic and selling for a mass-marketed $99.99 or less. The interactive installation is one component of the ���Plastic Fantastic��� group show inspired by my own father, scientist/inventor/ plastic pioneer Dr. Harry D. Anspon, and even features the retailer���s trademark greeters, special end-cap displays and branded Paul-Mart packaging. Paul-Mart in ���Plastic Fantastic,��� September 8 through October 27, at Deborah Colton Gallery. Catherine D. Anspon CLASSIC SYMPTOMS COLLECTION MFAH Tiffany���s Furm Furniture���s club chair, at Peveto UNSUNG HEROINE What���s the best way to contemplate your trove of Warhols and Mehretus? Perch on a chair fabricated from a former ���ne art shipping crate while gazing at your holdings. Then, to show off your art volumes, we recommend a coffee table made of art crates that may have transported an exhibition from MoMA to the MFAH. And ���nally, clink cocktails from a bar cart, which perhaps once protected a priceless Dutch master en route. These are a few of the offerings from the handsome, sturdy Furm Furniture line ��� the brainchild of two artworld insiders, Felipe Contreras and Scott Peveto of Peveto, a ���ne-art resource management company sited on Colquitt���s Gallery Row. The full collection also includes side tables and ���le cabinets. We���re mad for this concept and can certainly say: Furm follows function. From $975 to $1,600, through Peveto; info@peveto.org. Catherine D. Anspon Gil Schafer III. of an ARCHITECT Among the splendors of ���American Made: 250 Years of American Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,��� perhaps the most sociologically intriguing is this Art Nouveau-era Dragon���y lamp. The prizewinning light, circa 1906, was designed by one of the artists who worked for Louis Comfort Tiffany in the Tiffany Studios: Clara Driscoll, head of the women���s glass-cutting department. Its inclusion in the MFAH���s expansively curated exhibition, organized by the museum���s Emily Neff and Christine Gervais, is commendable. Through September 16, at MFAH; mfah.org. Catherine D. Anspon Lauded architect Gill Schafer III���s new book, The Great American House: Tradition for the Way We Live Now (Rizzoli $55), is a stunning testament to a life well-lived. Schafer is equally adept at renovating and building new, erecting Neoclassical, Greek Revival or Federal-style vernacular; the strains of his architect-trained ancestors (his grandfather and great-great-grandfather were architects) are ���rm and strong. His work melds the best of the past, present and future, with each home beautifully thought out, romantic and dreamy. Each of the 256 pages in this tome is an inspiration to build one perfect home in one���s lifetime. Schafer is the former chairman of the Institute of Classical Architecture and an extraordinary speaker. He will be in Houston Thursday, October 4, at Greenwood King The Lobby for a talk and book signing. Gratis, but please RSVP to thelobby@ greenwoodking.com. Books will be for sale at the event. JENNY ANTILL A new showroom at Ligne Roset Brittany and Adam Branscum A MAD for MODERN new Ligne Roset showroom has opened at West Ave. New-to-Houston design-atics Brittany and Adam Branscum (who pack, respectively, degrees in interior design and architecture) have moved from Oklahoma City, where they own BD Home, to re-launch Ligne Roset in Houston, which they���re mad about ��� both the brand and the city. ���There was a Ligne Roset store three years ago, says Brittany, ���and when it closed, people missed it.��� Two favorite pieces in the store? The Ploum sofa designed by the Bouroullec brothers and the Serpentine chair by Eleanore Nalet, they say. 2800 Kirby Dr. in West Ave, 713.630.6500; lignerosethouston.com. Holly Moore 2304 Bissonnet 713.630.0066 shabbyslipshouston.com S habby Slips owner/ designer Renea Abbott has expanded yet again. Renea Abbott Several years ago, she bought a bungalow that backs up to her sleek slipcover, furnishings and antiques shop on Bissonnet and repurposed it as a show house to help clients and shoppers imagine how they might live the gorgeous Abbott-styled life. That little house has now been reimagined as a quaint country cottage, while adjacent to the back entrance of Shabby Slips, Abbott has debuted another new space: an open, airy former warehouse with cement ���oors. Here you���ll ���nd an array of 17th- to early-20th-century antiques culled from Europe (France, Italy, Germany and Sweden, to be exact), plus lighting of the wonderfully crusty crystal kind. Meanwhile, her original atelier is devoted to her upholstered and slipcovered furniture and accessories. Laurann Claridge JENNY ANTILL Not Too SHABBY