Chlora goes to the Fairmont

On October 1, I began a sweet gig in Dallas as Artist-in-Residence at the Fairmont. The hotel is a grand old lady, the only hotel in the Arts District. It is a program that's been active for two years now, with one artist per quarter living in a suite on the top floor and a big studio on the bottom.

October began in a blur, as two unexpected things happened: my sister Wendy in Plano had to have cancer surgery, and my Fairmont digs weren't quite ready for me and all my junk. But Wendy's doing great, and I am happily nested and being productive.

Work in progress: the hotel offered to install a kiln, but that wasn't necessary or advisable. So I began a few pieces at home, glazed them up in Dallas, and brought them home to fire again.

Main piece so far is a silver champagne bucket, called "Miracle on Ice". On the bottle is a mosaic adaptation from the Chora Museum in Istanbul which I saw last summer. It is the "Wedding at Cana", you know, water into wine. Why not the finest champagne?

On the bucket are two adaptations from the Dallas Museum of Art...my former employer, which now I "look down upon" from the 25th floor!

It was SO stimulating to just walk over one block and see the the paintings in person. Frederick Edwin Church's "The Icebergs" is the DMA's signature piece I suppose...I was there when it was acquired and even got to install the fome-cor on the back of the stretcher (wonder if that has been changed out??!!) The other image on the bucket is Dubuffet's "The Reveler", which was also great fun to study up close, as the paint texture is much richer and varied than you'd ever

know from a reproduction. So, I am a frequent flier at the DMA and Nasher these days, collecting ideas and images for pieces in process, yet to come.