French Artist Claire Basler

Artist Claire Basler in her studio

Claire Basler is an artist working in central France who is known for painting dreamy depictions of the flowers and trees from her gardens — and these are no ordinary gardens. Basler works from a studio on the grounds of the magnificent château where she lives, which she calls Château de Beauvoir. Never mind that there is another famous château by the same name in France — fans of her work are often trekking to the wrong château in hopes of a glimpse her gardens, or Claire herself. She's gaining a following in Texas — last summer, Basler brought her floral canvases to Houston for a show at the Houston Design Center, and I was told sold most of her inventory at the show and is painting furiously to catch up. She also has a backlog of special commissions, and earlier this year, published a book of her work, Claire Basler: Peintures, which has been translated into English.

Her lavishly painted works depict unruly roses, peonies, will dill, parsley, and other flora flourishing in her gardens and the surrounding bois, or woods. It's one thing to see these lovely works on canvas, and quite another to see how she's covered the walls of her château with her paintings. It's like stepping into a dream. 

Basler occasionally opens her château for visits, and I was lucky enough to get an invitation earlier this month. The château is located about three hours south of Paris, halfway between the village of Échassières and Le Lieu-Dit La Bosse. Often referred to as a castle, the 15th-century Château de Beauvoir is situated on the edge of the forest of Collettes with 200-year-old oak and beech groves, said to be some of the oldest and most beautiful in France. The château is surrounded by Scots pine and Douglas fir, planted during the Middle Ages for logging. The formal French boxwood gardens feel more unruly than most, with their lush vines, roses, delphinium, and a slew of other pinks, whites, and purples. It's easy to see where Basler's inspiration comes from. 

She translates mist-shrouded forests, moss-covered tree trunks, and wild flowers onto her walls with abandon, her sun-and-shadow-dappled rooms becoming a life-size canvas. Each scene is beautifully composed with contemporary, mid-century inspired furniture and lighting. It's all very dream-like, but you can imagine living there, too. I'm grateful she shares this beautiful piece of property, and her talents with others.


THE CHATEAU DE BEAUVOIR...

INSIDE...

THE GARDENS...

THE GARDENS COME INSIDE...

 

CLAIRE BASLER'S STUDIO...

CLAIRE BASLER AT WORK...

Matthew Solomon Porcelain Tulips

Porcelain tulip by Matthew Solomon

Utterly Sublime    If you thought nothing could rival the beauty of nature, take a look at these lavish porcelain tulips created by ceramicist Matthew Solomon, who often works for weeks on a single complex flower in his studio in upstate New York. A former lawyer turned amateur gardener, Solomon uses specimens from his own garden and those found in historic paintings as inspiration for smaller, complex floral sculptures. They're glazed in a range of hues, as below (Solomon's most luxurious pieces are said to recall the luxurious European design objects seen in the the paintings and Rococo decor he studies). I love the pure white ones, though — for all their exquisite light and shadows, they look as if they might have emerged from a Vermeer.

$560 and up. Emily Summers/Studio 54 carries them exclusively in Dallas.

Porcelain tulips by Matthew Solomon

BLACKBIRD FARM

The 1915 Sealy House, one of many rental properties in Fayette County owned by Blackbird Farm. 
Photo Jerry Herring.

Lots of people dream of ditching the big city, moving to the country and starting fresh, but few have done it as well— or on such a grand scale — as Joan and Jerry Herring. The Houston couple decided to get the heck out of dodge in 2008, when a Super Target opened next door to their property near downtown Houston, where they had lived and worked for five years. Both visual artists and photographers, Joan had a successful framing business, while Jerry owned a graphics design firm. Their search for a new place eventually pushed them an hour and a half west into Fayette County, where they purchased 38 secluded acres of rolling hills, pecan trees, a large pond and a few broken-down buildings. “The plan was to build a big house on it and live out there,” says Joan. But when the process took too long, the Herrings hired a barn-builder instead and converted the finished-out structure into a tiny 36’ by 48’ two-story farm house. They turned the sleepy property, which they named Blackbird Farm, into a working ranch with cattle and egg-laying hens. 

Custom-made cedar cabins outside Fayetteville, TX. Photo Jerry Herring.

After a year of commuting to Houston, Joan relocated her framing company to the farm, and Jerry sold his graphic design company to his son. “We never built our big house,” says Joan, without a hint of regret — and why should there be any? During the past eight years, the Herrings have bought a prime chunk of Fayette County — carefully renovating historic 19th- and early-20th-century structures and thoughtfully building new ones, which they rent to visitors from Houston, Austin and beyond. But their bread-and-butter is the dealers, designers and shoppers that frequent the twice-yearly Round Top Antiques Fair. “When we moved here, we didn’t even know what Round Top was,” says Joan. Now, their rental properties are fully booked months in advance of the shows. “Our business has grown along with the antiques fair,” she says. The Herrings’ current rental holdings include nine properties — many of them in the historic town of Fayetteville (15 minutes from Round Top) — such as the 1850 House, a home built around a mid-19th-century log cabin; the 1915 Sealy House, which is on 47 acres; and the 1835 Red & White Inn, a former commercial building on the old square in Fayetteville that once housed a movie theater. Guest rooms are upstairs, with the Red & White Gallery located downstairs, which launched in 2012 with a show by the Herrings’ friend, the respected sculptor Jesús Morales, who died last year. A subsequent exhibit by well-known photographer Laura Wilson (and mother of actors Luke, Andrew and Owen Wilson) attracted more than 250 people (most of Wilson’s work sold out during the event). The couple also built cabins and a multi-use event center, Herring Hall, on Blackbird Farm. But their crown jewel is the elegantly renovated 1898 Market Street Inn, located one block off Fayetteville’s historic main square, which is jointly owned by local Mary Quiros, a walking buddy of Joan’s. “We’d walk around town and get an hour’s worth of exercise every day, and we’d pass by this grand, beautiful old house with its shutters falling off and a For Sale sign out front,” Joan remembers. “‘Mary said, ‘If I was younger, I’d buy it and fix it up.’ So I said, ‘Let’s do it!’” 

Victorian-era Market Street Inn, Fayetteville, TX. Photo Jerry Herring.

The acquisition was a coup — beautiful Victorian-era houses like Market Street Inn have helped put the town of Fayetteville on theNational Register of Historic Places, Joan says. They closed on the property in January 2014 and opened it for guests arriving that spring for Round Top. “We modernized it with updated plumbing and electrical and air conditioning, but we were careful to keep the original old feel of the place,” says Joan. Private baths with six-foot soaking tubs were added to each of the five bedrooms, and the house’s original bead board walls, hardwood floors, carved moldings and doors were retained. The rooms are decorated with furniture and accessories found at Round Top. Quiros donated a stained-glass window that had belonged to her grandmother for one of the bedrooms, and her husband, Evan, a woodworker, built a cedar farmhouse table that seats 10 for the communal kitchen. A pair of original French parlor doors became the new back door, allowing for picturesque views, and custom leaded-glass doors were installed in the front, to give the entry a grand feel, says Joan. A large-scale photograph by Laura Wilson, Dapple Gray, hangs in the foyer. While the Market Street Inn is their most elegant property, all of their rentals are full of luxury and charm, including plush white spa towels, robes, slippers, and fine linens (garment-dyed, eco-friendly Bella Notte bedding in the 1850 House), and vintage and antique quilts and crewel coverlets. Kitchens are stocked regularly with fresh brown eggs from the Herring’s own Barred Rock Hens, along with butter, cream, fresh bread and kolaches from local Czech bakeries. To pay homage to the Red & White Inn’s movie theater heritage, they frequently show old black-and-white films and invite the townspeople; the inaugural show, appropriately enough, was Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House. The Herrings can barely keep up with the demand for rooms, which Joan says is driven by the popularity of such HGTV treasure-hunting shows as Junk Gypsies, featuring sisters Amie and Jolie Sikes, who have a store in Round Top. “We get from 30 to 100 requests each day for lodging before and during the antiques fair,” says Joan. “We had no idea all this would happen.” To meet the increasing demand, the Herrings have just put a contract on a 600-square-foot property near Market Street Inn. “We fell in love with it,” she says. “It’s a cute little country cottage that looks out onto a beautiful pasture.”

Detail inside the Sealy House. Photo Jerry Herring.

My story on Blackbird Farm originally appeared in PaperCity. To see all of Blackbird Farm's properties and rooms, go here.

Benson-Cobb Studio

Carol Benson-Cobb in front of her new canvas wallpaper collection. Portrait by Chet Photography.

Carol Benson-Cobb is one of those rare artists who uses both sides of her brain. The creative side nudged her into the world of abstract art at an early age, and she's been painting professionally for 20 years. But her organized, business mind has steadily propelled her into the kind of success that many artists only dream about. Known for custom colorization, the Dallas-based artist is a favorite of interior designers who commission her large-scale works for residences and commercial projects through her wholesale company, Benson-Cobb, founded in 2012. Her success has been staggering. Last year, the company grossed $1.6 million in sales, she says. Top retailers, such as Calvin Klein Home, which recently tapped her to produce a custom collection, are taking note of her beautifully-rendered abstract works and hand-crafted framing. She's also done limited reproductions of original pieces for Neiman Marcus and Williams Sonoma Home. Large-scale reproductions of her own original works have become a staple of her business. While her originals fetch tens of thousands of dollars, her reproductions go for a fraction, depending on size and customization. "I’m a reluctant manufacturer," she says of the scaled paintwork she creates on canvas and paper. "No one is doing it with the kind of quality I want, so I do it myself. I look at it from the end result and work my way backwards. I'm more interested in how it looks than how much it costs." She has a new showroom in the Dallas Design District and a workshop/studio north of Dallas in McKinney. Unlike most artists who reproduce their work, Benson-Cobb maintains total control, from conception to printing and framing. "Usually the artist is not involved, they just license their work, so they can’t manipulate, can't custom frame, can’t sit there with a designer and create a project based on an original painting." In October, she added another layer to her booming art business, launching her first lines of upholstery fabric and wall coverings at High Point. Textural with the look and feel of an artist's hand, her original works are interpreted and reproduced onto canvas wallpaper and yards of exquisite Belgian linen. See them at her showroom and the retail store Napa Home.

Benson-Cobb's hand-printed artwork on Belgian linen

Carol Benson-Cobb in her studio, surrounded by work samples. Portrait by Chet Photography.

She was an artist before she ever realized it. "I was a rebellious teen and into the Punk scene," says Benson-Cobb, who was born in Dallas and grew up in a small north Texas community. She was first introduced to art while visiting a friend from California whose mother was an artist, and they used her studio one day. Benson-Cobb came back home, picked up a paintbrush and hasn't put it down since. "My bedroom wall as a kid had huge murals of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe," she says laughing.  "I wanted to be an artist, but I had no idea how you made a living at it." She eventually learned to paint formally as an adult while living in Arizona, where she was raising her family. "I sold my work online, and it grew and grew." Her main clients were interior designers looking for artwork in custom colors and sizes, and she even painted furniture. "My studio was on the edge of a canyon on a 365 acre ranch," she says. "It became my inspiration." Her abstracted landscapes sold like hotcakes. "Once I started painting abstracts there was no turning back," she says. "Abstract art literally changes the tone of a space in a way that other art doesn't." Change the colors, the scale or the frame, and it changes the mood, she adds. She began bringing her paintings to market in Dallas about eight or nine years ago. "The first one sold out completely," she remembers. In 2008 she relocated from Arizona to McKinney to be closer to Dallas's growing design industry, setting up a studio in the historic downtown square.

Benson-Cobb could barely keep up with the demand for her work. "Even if I painted 30 original paintings each month, it would still only be 30 paintings," she says. To meet requests for volume, she began researching ways to reproduce her original works using a large art printer. "No one was doing it on the level I wanted," she says. "So I did it myself." After much research, she bought a large scale printer for $250,000 in 2008 and went into seclusion, experimenting until she learned how to master the technology and technique. "That was the turning point," she says. "

Benson-Cobb canvas wallpaper collection

Carol Benson-Cobb in front of one of her artworks.  Portrait by Chet Photography.

Benson-Cobb's studio in the Dallas Design District.  Photo by Chet Photography.

A rack holds Benson-Cobb's new line of Belgian linen fabric samples

Artwork at Benson-Cobb's studio. Photo by Chet Photography.

Benson-Cobb's recent foray into wallpaper was a natural progression, she says, and the result of experimenting with new ideas on her printer. "I took my canvas and turned it over, ran it through printer on the gesso side. It was such a cool look." It took her two years and a global search to source the right printer to carry out the quality and scale required for wallpaper. Then she experimented with printing on fine Belgian linen. "Once I saw it printed on linen, I fell in love with it."

Up next: Benson-Cobb is working with Vanguard Furniture and Williams Sonoma Home on licensing designs across their brands, including fabrics by the yard. Late January 2016, she's headed to Paris for Maison et Object, where she'll be meeting with manufacturing companies about a potential reproduction line in Europe. Making her artwork accessible to more people has always been her priority. "I've always wanted to be relatable as an artist, to create art at a price that most people can afford. And I'm controlling my work every step of the way. It's a pretty great place to be."

Carol Benson-Cobb at her studio. Portrait by Chet Photography.

Patrizia Moroso's House in Italy

Photo by Alessandro Paderni

Dateline Italy   Moroso just opened an amazing new store in Houston, its first Texas location. The company's creative director, Patrizia Moroso, is one of the most innovative talents in the furniture business, teaming up with artists and architects such as Ron Arad and Patricia Urquiola to create designs. In the course of writing about her new store, I had a chance to talk to her by phone from her new house in Udine, Italy, where her family's 60-year-old business is based. She loves to talk about furniture design, but it's her house that gets her most excited. Designed by Urquiola — the Spanish architect who has been Moroso's best friend for ages — the house is set inside a wild, abandoned garden, which she's left intact. “When I saw it, I called Patricia right away and told her I wanted her to design a house for me," she says. "I wanted to feel like I was living in the garden."

Photo by Alessandro Paderni

Photo by Alessandro Paderni

Moroso wanted the house to disappear into its wooded setting, so Urquiola clad the 10,000 square foot abode in cedar with a black painted roof, which Moroso likens to tree bark after a rain. Windows and doors are painted oxblood red, “like the leaves,” she adds. The black and red palette is Moroso’s favorite, and the red reminds her especially of the color of the dirt in Africa, where her husband Abdou Salam Gaye is from (together they have three children). 

Photo by Alessandro Paderni

Photo by Alessandro Paderni

It’s an environmentally conscious house, with cork-insulated walls, solar panels and a cistern for watering plants. Inside, nature is a large part of the design scheme. “I asked Patricia to make the biggest windows possible, so that I could feel like I was living in the garden,” she says. “Many of the walls are totally glass. In summer, it’s like living in a jungle. In the winter, it’s like living in the snow.”

Photo by Alessandro Paderni

Photo by Alessandro Paderni

The first floor is all about hosting family and friends, whether for small gatherings or extended stays. There’s a catering kitchen, indoor pool, guest room and a Turkish bath — the Middle Eastern variant of a steam bath. The children’s playrooms are nearby and a main seating area includes furniture designed by Urquiola and contemporary Iranian rugs. A conversation pit, inspired by Gaye’s African heritage, features a red, black and oak palette, along with an oversize photograph by Boubacar Touré Mandémory, a contemporary artist included in Moroso’s “M’Afrique” exhibition for the 2009 Milan furniture fair.

Photo by Alessandro Paderni

Upstairs are the private family quarters that feature a small living room, dining room and kitchen, along with bedrooms. Urquiola corralled Moroso’s collection of one-off furniture by the designers she works with including Ron Arad, and a mis-mash of prototypes and factory rejects. “Patricia made everything clean and organized out of my mess, because I have a lot of things I love: big pictures, prototypes of furniture. Everything comes from the company. I can change out furniture anytime I want.” Inspired by modern houses from the 1950s, the interiors are “very clean, but very warm with lots of wood,” says Moroso. “In the end, Patricia did the perfect, simple house.”  moroso.it