Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1137940
ART + DECORATION 50 T his Just In: Wisteria is opening a store in Houston, and we couldn't be more thrilled. A Dallas design mainstay with two retail locations, Wisteria began in 2000 as a catalog of furnishings, textiles, and accessories inspired by their love of rich culture and worldwide travel. Now the company has a keen-eyed design team, half a million catalogs mailed each month, and an inspiring website. Houston joins the party with a Wisteria home design showroom at 3461 West Alabama, next to Found. A late-fall opening is slated. I nterior designer Meredith Ellis is bringing her beloved showroom, James — which she opened in Austin in 2015 to immediate success — to Decorative Center Houston, opening after Labor Day. When Ellis returned to her native Texas in 2010 after working for designers Bunny Williams and Michael S. Smith in New York, she quickly noticed a gap in the fabric and wallpaper offerings available to Texas designers — lines she had been using for years, such as Lisa Fine, Carolina Irving, and Sister Parish. She launched her 1,400-square- foot to-the-trade Austin showroom in a restored 1930s Craftsman bungalow in the Design District downtown and never looked back. Her eye for indie and classic lines alike won her a devoted following, and a showroom at the Dallas Design Center debuted in 2017. HOME, JAMES! WISTERIA WISHING A ustin artists Caprice Pierruci and painter Sydney Yeager share an affinity for close looks at nature, especially for commentaries about Earth's hidden geology. Pierruci's towering wood works, honed from her signature media of white pine, evoke the ecology of endangered coral reefs. At Laura Rathe Fine Art, her ambitiously scaled wall pieces are paired with Yeager's abstract paintings — sinuous ribbons of oil on canvas that reference the precarious beauty of glacial ice and the melting polar ice caps. Pierruci boasts an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in NYC; Yeager earned her MFA at The University of Texas at Austin. Together, they represent 75 years of art-making. "Currents Beneath the Surface"( through August 10), at Laura Rathe Fine Art, 2707 Colquitt St., laurarathe.com. Catherine D. Anspon EARTH ART At Decorative Center Houston, James is taking over the third- floor 2,000-square-foot space that formerly housed Wells Design (which has moved across the hall to the Wells Abbott showroom). "We couldn't be more thrilled about the ability to better serve our existing designers, meet new ones, and become a part of Houston's thriving design community," Ellis tells PaperCity. James is an engaging, inspiring experience with masterful vignettes laced with antiques and intriguing objects. "It's how people want to live — among their things," she says. Look for fabric from Peter Dunham, Lisa Fine, Carolina Irving, Rebecca Atwood, and Schuyler Samperton; wallpaper from Jennifer Shorto, Caitlin McGauley, and Studio Four NYC; lighting by Coleen & Company; and furniture from Bunny Williams Home to the trade. James, Decorative Center Houston, 5120 Woodway Dr., Suite #3029, jamesshowroom.com. Anne Lee Phillips COURTESY THE ARTIST AND LAURA RATHE FINE ART COURTESY THE ARTIST AND LAURA RATHE FINE ART From above: Sydney Yeager's Glacial Pink, 2019. Caprice Pierruci's White Cascade IV, 2019. Both works through Laura Rathe Fine Art. James Showroom Meredith Ellis READ MCKENDREE