Occupancy Permit, Among Other Things

I think we're a go. I sat at Irma's this morning with my laptop, a cup of coffee and a terrific breakfast taco. Waiting for the city inspector to give final approval to the installation space. He arrived just after 9:30, looked at the number 20 on the front of the building, checked the new lock on the back exit door and pronounced the space, as my Dad would say, "worthy and well qualified."
So the next steps are to call the permitting department on Tuesday and see if the paperwork is complete. Then either Modelle or I will drive over to pick up our permit, buy a frame for it and affix it prominently in the Second Seating space.
Hey, this was a good day. I also called a friend who owns a moving company and asked him if he would cart those huge banquettes away and store them for the duration. That means the place will be empty at last and ready for a good power washing next week. This development pleases me beyond words.
Also found a $10 table at my favorite resale shop up on Harrisburg late this afternoon. I'll drape it with white table cloths and it will become the Clorox table under that divine Clorox bottle chandelier.
And 002Houston emailed today to ask if the date for the opening was still September 24. Hope that means a calendar listing in the magazine.
And I actually did some gluing on a montage made with dozens of wallet size images. It's taking shape and I'm liking it. It'll need a frame. Can't decide if I need one of my painted frames or if I should play it straight with a natural wood frame that looks as if it would be right at home in a downtown loft. I'd like to sell. A lot of work. All of those painted plates. Selling everything on view at Second Seating would be very nice for all eight artists. Wouldn't that be good fortune?

The "Before" Space

Right after this July 4 holiday, an electrical contractor will work in the Second Seating exhibition space, bringing it up to code so that a 90 day occupancy permit will be forthcoming from the city and the show will go on.
Here's a 'before' photo. During the month of July, Irma will clear out the space and fix the leaky roof and I'll have electrical work done and call in a cleaning crew to power wash the concrete floor and whatever else we deem necessary before a few lengths of Sheetrock will be installed here and there and painted terracotta, mustard and chartreuse. All of this before Labor Day, if we adhere to a schedule that allows for enough time in September to live with the dinner tables and chandeliers in the space, moving them a bit here and a bit over there until it's all just right.

Now off to celebrate July 4 and hear the Declaration of Independence read aloud. Not a bad idea to listen to those words at least once every year.

A Day's Mix of Fantasy and Reality

Is this beautiful or what? I brought the banquet chandelier into the dining room and am hand stitching the twisted fabrics together on each of the metal tubes that make up the shape of this piece. Still have more brocade to ruffle and lights to chose. But I am loving the rococo quality of this chandelier. Lush fabrics, will add a plethora of drop crystals and four flame-like bulbs on stamen-like stalks that will surround that Chinese red vase in the very center. More photos to come. Now, just to balance this flight of fancy...

Five City of Houston inspectors visited the Second Seating building early this afternoon as part of the process for obtaining a 90 day occupancy permit. They shook their heads and said we needed the building number over the entrance and a host of other things that I will discover in their report later this week.
Fulfilling the 90 day occupancy permit requirements is another layer of administrative work that must now go into the making of this installation space. I'm thanking heaven I learned about it in time to make the place ready for the public to enter.
Let me now get back to the fun of mixing and matching fabric on a chandelier. And, by the way, I spoke with someone this morning who is now drawing sketches of a flying parrot pinata chandelier for Second Seating. Feral parrots are multiplying in Houston's East End of late and certainly, this installation will include the phenomenon.

Lunch at Irma's and Other Stuff

It just doesn't get any better or any fresher or any sweeter. That would be lunch at Irma's yesterday. Aggie and I had little bowls of beans a la charra, plates with 1/2 a chicken breast covered with mole sauce and 1/2 an enchilada filled with spinach so deftly sauteed it was still bright green.

All of this followed with coffee and a plate of warm sopapillas drenched with honey and dusted with crushed pecans and cinnamon. For dessert, we thought about flan, but Irma said that sopapillas went better with coffee. Of course.

I'd say our lunch was a perfect rendition of what could become Irma's 'Second Seating Lunch Special' that she'll serve during the exhibition.

Aggie and I've been running around for two days, thinking about lighting fixtures for Second Seating, seeing the actual space, talking to the chandelier man and to the owner's of an East End kitchen appliance resale shop. Plus a visit with Jesse Sifuentes to see how his coffee buffet table is progressing.We are aiming for a completion date of June 30 so that Laurie can photograph it for a new press release and we can get it moved from his garage into the Harrisburg studio. That's the plan.

And there was a gardener's discussion about the pomegranate trees in Jesse's front lawn. After that we drove over to a used kitchen appliance shop on Polk St. where Aggie spotted a vintage turquoise gas stove. She's thinking of designing a vignette, make that tableau, with an old stove, her etched metal as back splash all with assorted kitchen utensils and 'stuff.' Sounds wonderful, especially if placed adjacent to Ted Estrada's table which he is calling "Las Comadres en su Merienda" ("The Godmothers' Coffee/Tea Time").
It's been wonderful to have Aggie in town and great to talk with another person who 'sees' what can be for Second Seating just by looking at the space and who offers terrific suggestions and some ideas that never occurred to me.
I am really tired today and may take it easy this afternoon. Just do quiet things. Would that be back to collaging? And just a few phone calls. Perhaps?

More On Chandeliers and Plates

One thing leads to another. When I went to Lighting Unlimited today to replace a few track light fixtures for my dining room which have been been nonfunctioning for more months than I care to remember, I asked the salesman if they sold parts I could use to build a chandelier or two. The salesman referred me to a shop further west on Richmond and within half an hour I had a much better idea of what is possible for this chandelier that will be overrun with cascading filigreed Clorox bottles. Plus, I'll have a bid for some welding work by tomorrow.

That bit of work sent me on to Southern Imports to price and measure mirrored glass balls. Purchased a ten inch ball and the small motor that goes with it. Also stopped at Texas Art Supply for a few more hole punches. I need to sketch what's in my mind so we can all see a before and after. Hoping to use the white tablecloths that Sonya sent me, rolling them diagonally and running them through the Clorox bottles - yes, we'll cut a hole in the bottom of each bottle. Then we'll hang them all from a central core as if they were part of a May Pole. Need a fan or an air vent near the chandelier so the bottles and fabric waft gently as the mirrored ball in the chandelier's very center covers everything with sparkles.

Thanks to Anne, I am also thinking about plates. I took some unglazed plates to Jesse yesterday that I bought on our trip to Progreso, and now think that we'll cover a whole wall with plates. Hello, garage sales. The wall will have both precious and junk, handmade and made in China.

And I am beginning to put more thought into a chandelier layered with 'Irma things' and garlanded with bias strips of vintage fabrics. Here are some bits and pieces of 'Irma things' that I liked photographing. Can you see some of this stuff on a chandelier?



Wish I had a cache of crystals to use also. And what about the beaded flowers that Mary Garcia fashions so delicately? I need to ask her about those. On it goes. And off to bed.

Second Seating Mixes Food and Art

Art and dining? Dining and art? The combination is not necessarily new, but the idea is spawning new venues and gaining devotees. I've just read The New York Times STYLE Magazine, Design & Living Winter 2008, and this mix of art and food sounds a lot like Second Seating to me.

Plans for Second Seating include receptions and parties in the space itself, catered by Irma's restaurant and hosted by a local green groups and real estate organizations.

These receptions will be about people coming together in a fantasy environment, drinking a margarita and eating a flauta or two while immersed in an art installation where almost everything is made with recycled junk or cast-off and vintage objects, including tin can chandeliers and collages made with stained coffee filters.


Second Seating will be a space in which you can ponder a transparent table base filled with East End street litter and remember Hurricane Ike when you spot a table made from trees felled by the storm. You may marvel at the number of stacked coffee mugs that support a tabletop of coffee beans and catch light from a chandelier constructed from Clorox bottles.

Food wouldn't be half as much fun to eat if we couldn't see it and I suspect that art, especially art that conjures up feasts or the lack of, will be more fun to experience with food in hand. So we are mixing art and food all the time with Second Seating.