New Sponsor: Culp Associates

Introducing...Kelly Hardage, owner of Culp Associates. He's always been one of my favorite people in the design community, and Culp has always been one of my favorite showrooms in Texas. So I'm excited to announce Culp as my first showroom sponsor of the blog.

Culp Associates showroom in the Dallas Design Center

Kelly was president of the company for 12 years before buying the legendary 38-year-old showroom from Walter Lee Culp in 2004. Since then, he's brought in a number of terrific new lines, including the lovely Ironies furniture line, which is showcased in a glass loft upstairs built exclusively for the collection.

As the name implies, Ironies has made a reputation creating

beautiful furnishings from metals and unusual, organic materials.

Who inspires your work?

My clients. They are diversified, interesting and worldly. It's their creativity and style that guide the way we select product and present ourselves as a showroom. They are why I love going to work every day.

Latest inspiration?

My wife and I were in Portland, Oregon recently and were invited to dinner at the home of the parents of a Dallas architect and friend. The house is about 30 minutes from the city and is on seveal acres surrounded by fields of hops, wheat, and Christmas tree farms. The home itself is an historic structure built around 1850. It was purchased and perfectly restored by my friend's mother and her husband. She is a legendary interior designer in Portland, and he is a very well known landscape architect. The grounds surrounding the home are some of the most beautiful I have seen and included every plant imaginable that will grow in that part of the world. Two 600-year-old Douglas firs shade the house. We had dinner by candlelight on the lush green lawn as the sun set and the moon rose in the distance. The home and the grounds were simply magnificent, but the owners made the visit so special. I have never met more gracious, lovely, and hospitable people anywhere.

Formations is a line of historically-inspired reproductions,

all hand-made in southern California.

Favorite recent design find?

A Navajo India rug that we discovered in a gallery in Santa Fe. I like it because it's very different that what one thinks of as a Navajo design. It was woven by hand in the early 1900s when the train tracks were being extended to the West. It has figures of women wearing unusual hats that have a Far East influence, and is believed that the design was taken from the Chinese workers who were employed by the railroads. It's unusual to find a pictorial like this.

(Read about Kelly Hardage's house here)

Family-owned luxury design house Pierre Frey is one

of a number of high end textile collections at Culp

(including Clarence House, Cowtan & Tout and Jim Thompson).

What do we probably not know about you?

I'm an introvert.

What books are you reading now?

Marine by Tom Clancy. I'm learning what my son, a Marine, has gone through.

South of Broad, by Pat Conroy

The Devil in White City by Erik Larson

Dennis and Leen's historic reproductions include stone mantlepieces and lighting

based on the company's collection of fine 17th and 18th century antiques.

What are you obsessed with?

My wife and two sons

Your biggest fear?

Not working.

On the horizon?

More travel and more time in Santa Fe.

Art Dealer Kristy Stubbs at Home

Kristy Stubbs, photographed in her temporary loft space last year.

The painting is by Mustafa Hulusi.

Text and Photos by Rebecca Sherman

Artistic Flair... From Claude Monet to Damien Hirst, 47-year-old Kristy Stubbs deals in some of the most significant art from the last 120 years. Her Fairmount Street gallery, which opened in Dallas in 1994, continues to exhibit 2-3 shows each year, while these days much of her inventory is kept in a private warehouse off Inwood Road, viewable by appointment. Her favorite works always end up at home, and she's found that displaying contemporary art in a residential setting helps clients picture how edgier pieces might look in their own homes.

Kristy finished the renovation of her wonderful 4,000 square ft. Monterrey style house in Greenway Parks earlier this year. "This house just lends itself to big works of art," she says. "It's not a mid-century modern, but it's still got clean lines, big windows with good light, and big walls that can hold large art. I've moved a lot of art in an out of here during the last 13 years."

Thomas Osika's sculpture was once in the museum at Yale, but now resides in Kristy's front courtyard.

"Most of what's here is for sale, and will go eventually, but there are five or six paintings in my house that move from wall to wall but never leave," says Kristy. The vitage mid-century Dunbar sofas were once in Dallas Mayor Stark Taylor's office.

The resin artwork above the sofa is by Peter Zimmerman; Kristy purchased the Richard Meier designed coffee table at Christie's.

At far left is a painting by Walton Ford. "He's one of my favorite artists, but he's not prolific enough for me to deal in," says Kristy, who notes that Ford only paints two or three year. "He's today's answer to Audubon -- he incorporates nature into his paintings, but they always have a social message."

Watch a video and slideshow on Ford's work here.

A coffee table book on the art of Roy Lichtenstein at left, and a detail of a bat from Ford's painting.

Kristy's glamorous dining room has a Jansen dining table, chairs from Dean Martin's house in Palm Springs, and a baby grand piano!

The 40s era Baccarat chandelier is original to the house.

The painting is by London artist Cecilia Stenbom, and features colorful fish all named from characters from American TV shows including Falcon Crest, Dynasty, and Dallas. "It's life in a glass box or fishbowl," says Kristy. "They still get the repeats in London, and people are always asking me if life is like that in America."

Detail from Cecelia Stenbom's painting.

At left, a detail of a Klismos style chair from Dean Martin's house, which Kristy reupholstered in Donghia fabric. At right, a detail from the buffet in her dining room, designed by Dallas interior designer Barry Williams. "Barry brought me this piece after I told him about a (Jonathan) Adler buffet I admired. I loved this one even more."

The centerpiece on the dining table is by London ceramic artist Barnaby Barford, who creates sculptures with mass market and antique porcelain figurines. His work seems playful on the surface, but after some study you realize it's a little unsettling.

I pulled back a little in this shot so you could see the juxtaposition of the industrial looking horn at far left with the glamorous staircase and dining room. The horn is part of a sculpture by audio visual artist Paul Fryer, whose work Kristy discovered in a small London gallery by accident one rainy afternoon. She now represents his work in the U.S., and spends a good portion of her time traveling back and forth from Dallas to London setting up shows for Fryer and other London-based artists.

The WWI era horn is mounted on a stack of London chimney bricks, and broadcasts a beautiful, haunting melody of the artist singing on a video, which plays on a TV at far left out of the shot.

A wall niche holds a rabbit and top hat, by taxidermy artist Polly Morgan.

Artist David Ligare's depiction of a thrown drapery is part of a series he painted in Greece.

At left, a vintage Hermes 3000 typewriter and a painting of poppies and syringes by Mick Jagger's daughter Georgia when she was 15 or 16, done as a senior art project for school. At right, Andy Warhol's paper Souper Dress, produced by Campbell's Soup, circa 1960.

Kristy's daughter Lilly and a friend eating berries in the breakfast room, under a water lilly painting by Brian Clarke. Kristy is crazy about water lilly paintings and has several, including one by Roy Lichenstein (which unfortunately didn't come out when I photographed it). Her dream, she says, is to own one painted by Monet.

Kristy discovered this fantastic chandelier at a garage sale. Looks like a wedding cake, doesn't it?

Kristy painted her tailored, sexy bedroom a stone color from Restoration Hardware. The silk satin linens and floor mirror are by Barbara Barry. The Christopher Brown aqua tints over the bed depict images from the Zapruder film, and that's an antique prayer bench at the foot of the bed.

In the master bath, a mirror reflects a painting of roses by Tony Scherman, one of Kristy's favorites.

The bath is done in marble and Texas limestone, with a Kohler faucet that is both a ceiling mount tub filler and shower (look up). Pretty cool. Even the bathroom has a little unexpected edge.

The Reading Room: New Art, Text and Performance Space

The Reading Room, 3715 Parry Avenue

Don't let these ivy covered walls fool you...there's nothing stuffy or high brow about The Reading Room, but there's definitely lots of deep thinking going on inside. Call it a modern day literary salon, where writers and artists gather to read from works of their choosing, to talk about art, and sometimes to perform. And you're invited.

Open since late July, the tiny 550 square foot space on Parry Avenue (directly across from Fair Park) is like nothing we've got going on anywhere else in Dallas.

The Reading Room founder Karen Weiner

"It's a project space that's always different. We're open to all kinds of things happening, from literature to visual arts. Sometimes the art will have text embedded in it, other times the text will be the art," says Reading Room founder Karen Weiner, who for many years managed the Artists Residency program at UTD, working with Rick Bretell.

Weiner has spent the last many years traveling the country and looking at what other cities are doing. "A lot of very interesting things are happening on very small scales, in non-art sites and at homes, where people give readings and share ideas. The gallery as classroom is something that's beginning to happen in other cities, too," she says.

Because the Artists Residency program was housed at Southside at Lamar, which has over 1 million square feet of living and work areas, Weiner was attracted to the idea of doing something in a single small room. She was inspired by poetry readings in New York at Bryant Park and author readings at her favorite book store 192 Books in Chelsea.

And then she discovered something unexpected. "Readings were becoming as satisfying for me as seeing art exhibitions," says Weiner, who studied bookmaking while at college at TWU. When the compact building on Parry came up for lease this summer, and The Reading Room was born.

Artist Lanie Delay's drawings explore the duality of identities and initiated

a conversation at the Reading Room in August.

Here, books are often the sparks that ignite performances, discussions, and art. In July, a variety of people including artists and a curator, brought an object of their choice to talk about. The idea was generated from a book called Evocative Objects: Things We Think With. The objects ranged from a brass water hose nozzle, photographs, a Braun coffee grinder, magnetic tape from an answering machine, and a ceramic toy from Mexico. "It was a sort of show and tell, and prompted conversation," says Weiner.

At another event in August, artist Barnaby Fitzgerald read from writings inspired by drawings made by his former student Lanie Delay, which were hanging on the walls behind him. Delay's portraits (above) both hand-drawn and computer generated, evoke the nature of duality and competition, explains Weiner. It was this metaphor that Fitzgerald pulled from in his readings, which included an article in the New Yorker about two 19th century writers who were rivals.

Sewn book by artist Candice Hicks

Coming later in September, an exhibit of large and small scale sewn books by Athens, TX artist Candice Hicks, who was inspired by the 1973 book by Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions. Weiner says there likely will be a reading from the book, with a discussion to follow. Check the Reading Room's website for updates.

Photograph by artist Madeline Djerejian

This Sunday, September 12 (4-6 pm) New York-based artist Madeline Djerejian will present a reading, Slide the Doors Open, "a brief and evocative soliloquy recalling a room and its contents, a verbal photograph blurred by memory," says Weiner. "Playing upon the slippages between sight and depiction, the text is a narrative of intimate recall that evokes the complex relationship between looking, seeing, and recounting."

The reading will be accompanied by photographs from Djerejian's work, Your Secret Admirer, "a series of still life images in which projections of light are used to stain white flowers by marking them with patterns and colors. The sensuous, often delicate, markings derive from the canvases of the American artist Ad Reinhardt."

Weiner invites you to come and bring someone, just check your preconceived notions about art galleries at the door. The Reading Room is always free of charge.

Artist Hadar Sobol's Edgy Embroidery

Hadar Sobol at her Studio in Salina, TX

A stitch just in time...embroidery is not an art usually associated with gritty self expression, but artist Hadar Sobol's embroideries on vintage linens and on paper are full of jagged emotion. From a few feet away, it's easy to mistake them for pen and ink sketches. Up close, there's no doubt about it, Israeli-born Sobol has command of her needle and thread as if her life might depend on it.

Because in a way, it does.

I started following Sobol's work a little more than year ago, after being invited to visit her home in Plano and later her studio in Salina, TX, where she had been working to prepare for her first one-person show at Valley House Gallery. Her show, Kairos (the Supreme Moment), opened on Saturday and runs through October 2.

Sobol, who is from Tel Aviv, moved to Plano almost 10 years ago with her husband who was transferred with his job. Pregnant with her first child (she now has two) and struggling with the English language, Sobol became increasingly isolated. Art became the way out and the way to survive, and she started expressing herself through a medium she was most familiar and comfortable with -- embroidery. Those simple black stitches pack a lot of power.

The themes in her work focus on the burdens women carry throughout life -- from bearing children to obsessions with body image, especially as we age.

"My work draws its inspiration from the narrative of a woman's inner voyage," Sobol says in a statement that accompanies her work. "During this voyage, as she confronts the changes in her life, she finds that in addition to experiencing pain she is provided with the opportunity to recreate herself."

Embroidery on vintage cloth by Hadar Sobol

At left, the moving book by Ukranian-born Israeli writer Alona Kimhi that helped inspire Sobol's first forays into art. Weeping Susannah is the story of a woman's struggle to learn to express herself, to live, and to love. Sobol has her own story, and it's expressed in her art. At right, the tiny farmhouse in Salina that Sobol converted into her studio.

"These images are transformed by the use of the reverse side of the embroidered cloth, digital manipulations and moving between different techniques, drawing, embroidery, etching, digital processing, and computerized embroidery," Sobol says.

The works above and below were created by digitally reproducing the reversed, unfinished side of the embroidered cloth onto paper, then washing it with ink and water.

Sobol sometimes embroiders onto the paper itself.

This is a collage of photos I took from Sobol's house and also her studio, months before her show. She displayed her work for visitors by setting up a half dozen or so ironing boards, which she liked for their flat surfaces. It was an expedient choice, she said, but so full of unintended irony -- what better way to show embroidery on linen, especially when the subject matter has to do with women's work?

The painting on the floor at left is an early work Sobol did of her grandfather.

At left, Valley House Gallery owner Cheryl Vogel, who made regular pilgrimages to Sobol's house and studio during the past year as the artist prepared for her show. I was privileged to tag along on two of these trips, and impressed by the way Cheryl and husband Kevin Vogel nurture their artists' careers. Kevin's father Donald Vogel founded Valley House Gallery in the late 1950s.

"Some artists come to us with their whole body of work already completed and all we have to do is build a show around it," Cheryl says. "Others, like Hadar, we have more of a chance to work with and follow along. It's really a wonderful opportunity to get to be with them from the beginning." Pictured at right in the white coat is Liliana Bloch, director of the McKinney Avenue Contemporary.

Sobol also produces original videos to accompany certain pieces, which she plays via a digital picture frame underneath embroidered vintage linens.

The videos are beautiful works of art, blurred and mysterious depictions of nude women who are obsessively fussing over their lumpy, misshapen bodies. Sobol's models were wearing panty hose, which they stuffed with wads of cloth until their hips, bottoms, and stomachs, looked huge. It's all shot and viewed as if behind a veil, maybe as if we are peeking from behind a curtain, as the models attempt to arrange and rearrange their bodies, their burdens.

Sobol gives an artist's talk on Saturday, September 11 at 11:00 a.m at the gallery.