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quickly became a passion, and she bought many others over the decades. "I've had quite a few houses but haven't kept all of them," she says. "I've either sold the land or couldn't keep them up. I sold my favorite house Cloud because I needed the money to buy more houses to save. I did some beautiful paintings in there." She didn't just fall in love with the old houses; she also fell in love with the old-fashioned neighborhood, with its overgrown gardens and streets without sidewalks. "We have so many glamorous areas in Houston, but this is how most people originally lived," she says. When she began restoring her first cottage, Now & Then, the people of Blossom Street were mainly poor and working- class. Werner-Vaughn, who lives in River Oaks, was embraced. "They were wonderful — they brought me food and flowers. It meant so much to them that I was creating a beautiful place in this tumbledown neighborhood." But not everyone wanted her there. Vandals set fire to Now & Then on Thanksgiving Day, right before her first show was scheduled to open. Art and furnishings were destroyed, and it took another year before she gathered the energy to repair the damage and mount a new installation. Aptly named "Annealed by Fire," the new show rose out of the ashes like a phoenix. It was Werner-Vaughn's first Houston exhibit. "I was devastated after the fire, but the show gave me a new vision," she says. "If I have vision, I can gain strength." And, she needed it: The fire kicked off a decades- long spate of burglaries throughout the compound of cottages — 64 instances in all. Furniture, artworks, and other precious items were stolen. The thefts finally stopped 10 years ago, as the neighborhood gentrified. Over time, Werner-Vaughn has used these tribulations to fuel her artwork and installations. "I found a way to make something beautiful out of destruction," she says. Her career flourished; she took a fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, and her myth-based drawings were used in a film produced by The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She's had other shows in Houston, including at Meredith Long & Company, which has represented her work for decades. The cottages, with their dreamy installations of furniture and art, continue to endure, evolve, and inspire. "Although it's not stated in my work, I'm showing A pink-and-blue painting by Werner-Vaughn, left, inspired this room installation. The artist also created the painting and sculptures at right and painted the cloud scene above the doorway. A monumental antique gilt candlestick is used as a pedestal for a tiny sculpture. Werner-Vaughn used Revlon's Fire & Ice lipstick to create a crackle pattern on the mirror as part of a series of works in the '90s. Marble table and columns, all antique. Greek and Etruscan vessels. (continued on page 100)