A Healing Machine for Mary

Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then, a film about a very special house, is showing at DiverseWorks in Houston through this Saturday:

Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then from Brent Green on Vimeo.

Gravity is  about a Leonard Wood, a man who tries to save his wife, who's dying of cancer, by building his home into a vehicle for her healing. In this trailer for the film, filmmaker Brent Green says after Wood was moved into a nursing home, the house was demolished because "it was the only house on the block that didn't look like every other house on the block."

Which immediately put me in mind of this book:

"My house is me and I am it. My house is where I want to be, and it looks like all my dreams." If you're gift buying for kids this season, go pick up a copy. 

Trend Alert: Multiples

Page Southerland Page's contribution to the 2009 Barkitecture silent auctionI love it when creative folk are called to create their own spin on a common object, often in the service of charity. Whether it be dog houses (benefitting Pup Squad Houston), Wegner Wishbone chairs (breast cancer research), or dollhouses (just for fun), it's a form of design candy I haven't gotten enough of yet. 

A retablo by Scott Woodward that will be part of the Lawndale auction tonight. The competition in Houston's Barkitecture silent auction is stiff, and I've got a beagle without an outdoor resting spot, so I'll be hitting their "yappy hour" tonight to scope out the options in advance of tomorrow's silent auction. Then it's off to my all-time favorite multiples-for-charity event, the Day of the Dead retablo auction at Houston's Lawndale Art Center.  If you can't make it out, or to scope out the offerings in advance of the crowds, visit the Lawndale retablo Flickr pool. Have a happy weekend!

The 10 Worst Things About Suburban Sprawl

An piece from Joshua Smith's Suburbs of the Emerald CityThis new piece from Jeff Speck (co-author of the influential book Suburban Nation) has been floating all around the internets this week. Key section:

Over a decade ago, when we started writing our book, "Suburban Nation," we had no idea how quickly the conversation was about to change. The New Urban critique of sprawl, initiated by my co-authors in the late seventies, was at first an aesthetic discussion -- by God, this stuff is ugly....But now, a preference has become a mandate, as sprawl has quietly been identified as a central cause behind a growing list of mounting national crises including foreign oil dependency, climate change, and the obesity epidemic. With economists, environmentalists, and epidemiologists all bemoaning suburbia, it is a good time to step back and remind ourselves what we're still up against.

Somber, true, useful reminders. But my favorite line was his critique of the ubiquitous, garage-fronted "snout house:" 

"Nothing says 'suburban anomie' quite like the dull stare of the American wide-mouthed garage-house."

For more on this topic, view our audio slideshow in which artist Joshua Smith discusses sprawl and his installation piece Suburbs of the Emerald City.

Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis-Designed Arthouse Opens in Austin This Weekend

Image courtesy of Lewis.Tsurumaki.LewisWelcome to Texas, LTL. We've always been appreciators of the New York firm's work, and were thrilled when they signed on with Hometta as part of our second round of studio recruiting earlier this year. Now they've completed their first project in the Lone Star State, the renovation of Austin's Arthouse, and it sounds like a smashing, if subtle, success. Jeanne Clair van Ryzin, architecture critic for the Austin American-Statesman, praised the Congress Ave. building just down from the Texas State Capitol, dubbing it "the antithesis of icon architecture.

After a recent spate of vigorously designed, attention-grabbing cultural institutions, Austin is welcoming an example of what might herald a countermovement of museum design — one that prizes subtlety and intelligence over spectacle, one that exercises environmental common sense and financial efficiency over snazzy technology and design driven by conspicuous consumption.

Those are all things Hometta loves, too. Another thing we love about the project is that it marks the revival of an 1850s-era downtown building marred by successive renovations. The Statesman piece worth a read in its entirety; find it here. The new Arthouse is being rolled out this weekend, with events throughout the weekend, including a fundraising dinner Friday night and the public opening on Sunday. Details here. 

Scenes from the Texas Book Festival

Past pugilists in the literary death match.I got to spend the weekend revisiting my old stomping grounds. Not just Austin generally, but the Texas Capitol, where I worked several sessions as a legislative aide and analyst. The occasion? The 15th Anniversary of the Texas Book Festival, where founder Laura Bush returned to read from her memoir, and hundreds of other authors discussed and read from their work. For a bookworm like me, it was simply heaven.

I attended two panel appearances by Jake Silverstein, author of my favorite book of the summer, Nothing Happened and Then It Did, and also caught glimpses of Rick Bass, James and Deborah Fallows, Eugene Robinson, and a panel discussion on Donald Judd's Chinati Foundation in Marfa (including retiring Chinati Director Marianne Stockebrand), just to skim some highlights.

Oh, and I can't sign off without mentioning the Literary Death Match.

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