The past few days has been stimulating to say the least, exuberant would be a better description.
Monday, February 13th was a new week with some business to do so we headed back to our office at Barnes & Noble and sat on the internet for a bit. As I checked on issues at home a women came and set up an art show from the students at a local elementary school. I’d love to know what their assignments were but there were common themes such as a giraffe, a youngster eating watermelon, and an underwater ocean scene....all things I could relate to. I find it interesting we have followed no itinerary to speak of this entire trip but every day we wake up in a new location with fresh eyes and find art and history everywhere we go. It’s been an amazing way to travel.
Monday afternoon found me at the home of Larry Harris. When my husband Frank and I traveled around the United States two years ago we followed a website www.narrowlarry.com produced by an architect in Houston named Larry Harris. After our trip I emailed him and told him how helpful his site had been and offered him the opportunity to come see me if he ever got to New Hampshire, which he took me up on last summer. We had a very brief visit because he was trying to fit in all of New Hampshire in one day but when he heard I was taking this trip he offered a tour of Houston if I came by. Knowing we both enjoyed the same things I couldn’t wait to jump at the opportunity. Sterling is a bit shy meeting people at first so I went and paved the way with a visit of my own and got my first look at the interior of Larry’s home.
Larry lives in a modest brick bungalow which looks like every neighbors on his street. It was his grandmothers and he is a native Houston resident who has pretty much lived here all his life. However, that aside, we share many commonalities like being the youngest child in our family, both having a lazy eye, both being exceptionally close to our grandmothers and both being extremely passionate about visionary folk art. His passion for folk art jumps out of his website and into his living room.
The minute he opened the door I was awe-struck. The first thing you focus on is the meticulous Victorian furniture gifted him by his grandmother which sits in front of the mantle with Pez dispensers painted like the Beatles and Amy Winehouse beside small die-cast architectural buildings of places he’s been and that’s just the beginning. His walls, piano, tables, refrigerator, bathroom, bedroom, study - everything is covered with bright, fanciful, witty, intense, pieces of folk art. In the center of his dining room was a large screen computer with the latest 11,000 square foot residence he was designing for a client. I felt right at home and we spent hours talking about the people and places he’s visited, the artists he’s met, the collections and the whimsy of it all which I absorbed like a dry sponge thrown into an ocean of color. I left more excited then when I arrived and couldn’t wait for the next two days. We set up a loose plan and I returned with Son Sterling the next day.
It was Tuesday, February 14th, Valentines Day and lucky for me, his girlfriend Kat wasn’t available until 10:00pm so I had Narrow Larry all to myself for the day and off we went after he gave Sterling a tour of his house. I saw completely different things this time with the highlights being the stones painted with flags by an autistic women and a mini motorcycle model made by Tattoo Tammy which was completely made by desert critter bones like a rat snake and mouse etc.
Driving around Houston is a feast for the eyes. Mosaic murals and graffitti is everywhere. There is no zoning so the houses are a mix of small old cottages to modern condos right on up to skyscrapers. Larry explained “The good thing about no zoning is that it allows for unleashed creativity" and he wasn’t kidding.
Our first stop was in the warehouse yard of David Adickes Sculptureworx which is like a jail for Presidents. Huge scale sculptures of all of the Presidents sit behind a fence with a rail yard in the background. That put the entire political carnival in perspective and we enjoyed looking at the inside to see how empty they really were. I posed with my favorite President, Barack Obama and on we went to Mark Bradfords yard.
Mark makes metal sculptures like none other. They are also huge in scale but nothing is orderly about Mark. His pieces can be frightening, entertaining, creepy and weird all at the same time. He has won awards at the Art Car Parade every year for the last 20 years. You can’t help but love Mark with his broad smile and enthusiasm about his work. He uses things like old cars or scooters and motorized wheelchairs and with great thought and talent makes them into the most amazing creatures which are fully articulated and mechanical in nature and do the craziest things. One of the things he uses for scales on his creatures were the metal spoons discarded by the airlines after 9-11 when they all switched to plastic. Words absolutely can not express the wow appeal - they were FABULOUS!
On to the Beer Can House. Just what it sounds like - a house completely decorated by beer cans drank by the owner John Milkavisch over 22 years this is a very fine example of an obsessive compulsive visionary artist. The tingling sound of the beer tabs excite the ears and while the siding done with the sheets of aluminum and mosaics done with rocks and marbles all delight the eyes. Unlike the complete chaos of Mark Bradford’s work the Beer Can house is orderly and neat. Apparently the artists wife would only allow him to do the outside while the inside was her domain and decorated quite traditional. This house has been adopted by The foundation known as the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art and this certainly fit the bill.
We still haven’t tired of Mexican food so Larry shared one of his favorite Tex Mex joints with us which was nicely decorated with bull-fighting murals and served delicous lunch specials but the next stop was Sterling’s favorite - the Mexican bakery. It’s amazing how much this kid can eat.
Larry took us to a very old Houston cemetary with huge, expansive live oaks where many locals are laid to rest. What made it interesting was the shrines with beautiful angelic sculptures these wealthy oil people can build to themselves. One of our dear friends from Brimfield was Bob Fillipone and we saw a marker with the name Fillipone with a touching epitaph which read: Birth gives us two certainties life and death. What we do in between is all that matters in the end.
The Houston Skyline and the two huge, glass Enron buildings are a sad reminder of the economic devastation Houston has endured for the past 10+ years yet The Flower Man and the Row Houses are a testament to the vibrant art community which resides here and can’t be discouraged or eliminated by bad times.
And on we went to one of Houston’s folk art crown jewels - the Orange Center for Visionary Art. Designed by Jeff McCissack who was a local postman the Orange Show was another site built what otherwise was a quiet middle class neighborhood of unremarkable homes in 1979 but it was remarkable in detail, scope, and vision and is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Again bold, bright colors, moving parts and pieces put together with iron, concrete, mosaic designs and sayings by famous philosophers decorate this site. Jeff McCissock thought it would rival any amusement park and he had planned to have concerts and shows here as evidenced by the tractor seats, tiered seating around stages and healthful orange messages at every turn.
I had visited the Orange Show before with Frank, so what inspired me the most about this site was actually the new project being started on the neighboring property which will be called Smither Park. The vision of one women who wanted to build a memorial for her husband, John Smither, she has created a park which will be decorated by various community artists and will include a memory wall, a meditation garden, swings, tunnels, towers and even an amphitheater. A dragonfly came and visited while we were here so I know this is the right direction for a project I’m working on for my own home in Wolfeboro. Inspiration abounds!
As if this wasn’t enough stimulation we passed a Vietnamese Buddhist Temple which drew Sterling right in. We stopped and enjoyed the magnificent details, the large bronze gong, the marble urn, the quiet music playing, the cool floor on our barefeet and the spiritual nature of this oasis in the middle of Houston. We even found beauty in the concrete worker with his tractor like machine making curbing and the Lawyer with the crazy yard sculptures on a corner.
It was a perfect Valentines day filled with eye-candy, head expanding possibilities and a generous new friend in my life. The evening brought my youngest son Emerson who I haven’t seen since last October before we left. Couldn’t have been a more perfect day!
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