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Home turf: Houston

Quirky Houston with outsider art specialist Suzanne Theis.
May 2006

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Home is where the art is

Susanne Theis, director of Houston’s Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, shows us the quirky side of Space City.

Despite its reputation as an oil capital, Houston isn’t all about petroleum companies and making big bucks. Susanne Theis, the director of local “outsider” [untrained] and folk art organization The Orange Show Center for Visionary Art (2402 Munger Street, 713-926-6368, www.orangeshow.org), shows us a whole different, even zany side of Space City.

This month is a big one for Theis as some 200,000 spectators gather for the Orange Show’s 19th annual EV1.net Art Car Weekend (May 12-14), when an assortment of 250 or so colorful, creatively decorated and altered autos will be on parade. Past entrants have included a gigantic shark, a van covered in spy cameras and a fantasy creature that walks on its front legs and rolls on its back legs. The first and largest of its kind in the nation, the parade has been motoring through downtown every May since 1988. Here, Theis reveals some of Houston’s alternative attractions…

Where do you take visitors first?

I take people to the Beer Can House (222 Malone Street, open daylight hours), which is, in fact, a house covered entirely in flattened beer cans. It was the lifelong project of John Milkovisch, who used the cans for siding and other practical purposes. The house—with a curtain of tinkling beer can tabs hanging from its front porch roof—is the wonderful outcome of many years devoted to saving, reusing and recycling. It’s a combination of Depression-era practicality and artistic sensibility.

The Flower Man’s House is another don’t-miss (2305 Francis Street, open daylight hours). Cleveland Turner is a recovering alcoholic whose home is his inspiration on the road to recovery. People who study this type of folk art call it an “African-American road show.” The house and yard are a mad confusion of color: painted wooden and real flowers reflect a love of gardening he learned from his aunt in Mississippi. There’s also a chicken coop in the back, a mule harness, and hundreds of objects that he finds and uses in creative ways.

It’s also fun to take people to art studios that are almost public, such as Mark Bradford’s (143 Heights Blvd, daylight hours). Here you can see a great variety of metal objects and sculptures made with such imagination, and appearing so lifelike, that going by there is a treat, even if you just look at it from the street.

Bradford’s work combines art and engineering. The Spoonazoid, for instance, is made from machinery and covered with a skin created from thousands of spoons. Its mouth opens and its eyes roll back and forth—like all of his art, it’s almost alive.

Last, the Art Car Museum (140 Heights Blvd, 713-861–5526, www.artcarmuseum.com, open Wednesday to Sunday 11am-6pm) is a wonderful destination to see mobile works of art—that is, art cars—from the US and Mexico. One highlight is a VW that artist Larry Fuente altered to look like a rabbit. It’s covered with hand-applied white fur, and the rabbit’s eyes are made from thousands of different objects. It’s almost frightening, because it looks lovely from far away, but up close you can see less friendly aspects, such as eyelashes made of plastic cutlery.

What else is uniquely Houston?

A real landmark is Thelma’s Barbecue (1020 Live Oak at Lamar, 713-228-2262), which has out-of-this-world food and is in a very un-fancy 1940s house near downtown. I took visitors from a Paris visionary art collection there and they loved it for the authentic piece of old-time Texas that it is. Another terrific place is Soul on the Bayeaux (3717 Dowling St, 713-528-0732), serving Louisiana-style soul food in an old shotgun-style house with maybe six tables. The fried catfish is a slice of heaven.

In such a large international city, I like to point out the places in the center that make you feel as if you’re in the country, in a small town. I love the fact that they feel genuine, when in our world so many things are inauthentic.

Which other spots should not be missed?

My husband and I enjoy browsing at All Records (1955 West Gray, 713-524-4900). The owner knows everything about jazz and obscure records; he’s a real treasure.

Sig’s Lagoon (3710 Main St, 713-533-9525, www.sigslagoon.com), a special kind of junk shop that specializes in records and all things retro, is great too. The shop is named for the deceased local journalist Sig Byrd, who wrote about the lives of Houstonians in a way so real that reading his work is still a worthwhile experience today.

Another favorite is The Last Concert Café (1403 Nance St, 713-226-8563, www.lastconcert.com), which hosts live music every night and serves Mexican food in a former bordello in the Warehouse District. You have to knock on the red door to get in.

Also priceless is La Carafe (813 Congress St, 713-229-9399), a narrow bar downtown on Market Square, with a beautiful wooden bar. The place was established about 130 years ago and is lit by dim lamps, keeping it romantically ultra-dark inside.

Finally, there’s Blanco’s (3406 W. Alabama St, 713 439-0072), a funky honky-tonk and venue for good non-commercial country music. It meets my qualification of feeling more like a bar in a small town—not one in an area of high real estate prices in the fourth largest city in the country.

You can get great deals on car rentals with AirTran Airways partner Hertz. Visit www.airtran.com for more details.

Words by Catherine Arnold

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